FYI...
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: CherianTinu Abraham <tinucherian(a)gmail.com>
Date: 7 August 2013 20:01
Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Press]: Techcrunch : "India’s Indigenous
Languages Drive Wikipedia’s Growth"
To: "Discussion list on Indian language projects of Wikimedia." <
wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, wmin-members(a)googlegroups.com
*Techcrunch : "India’s Indigenous Languages Drive Wikipedia’s Growth"*
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/06/indian-languages-drive-wikipedia-growth/
*Despite accommodating the world’s second largest English-speaking
population behind the United States, it is India’s indigenous language
speakers that are creating and consuming the content that is driving
Wikipedia’s growth on the subcontinent.
The Wikimedia Foundation last year issued a $440,000 grant to the
Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), which, along with
the local Wikimedia chapter, has trained almost 2,500 Indians how to edit
and create content in their local languages.
While the country’s official languages are Hindi and English (when the
country earned its independence in 1947, the states couldn’t agree to be
represented by a single local tongue) there are over a thousand recognised
dialects, and 22 official languages spoken by over a million people.
Last September, CIS targeted ten tongues — Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati,
Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi and Telugu — and started
working with India’s Wikimedia chapter, responsible for coordinating the
local volunteer efforts, to boost the amount of local language content
being created on a range of websites including, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and
WikiCommons.
CIS said that between September 2012 and April 2013 the number of page
views increased by almost four million. Additionally:
- 13,400 articles were added in the top four languages, Tamil, Malayalam,
Kannada and Hindi.
- Page views on the 25,000 Bengali entries grew by 1.4 million to about 4
million.
- There were consistently over 100 active Malyayam Wikipedia editors.
While each community used the platform for a different purpose there were
three themes that cut across the different languages: cinema, places, and
local personalities.
The training attracted people from all walks of life.
Tamil grandfather Sengai Podhuvan didn’t even know how to switch on a
computer before the training, but the 78-year old has become one of the
site’s biggest contributors; a blind man now edits Hindi Wikipedia entries;
and Sujarta, a Chennai stay-at-home mum, who doesn’t speak English, now
edits the Telugu Wikipedia between the hours of 11am and 3pm, when most
housewives, who, like herself, did not go to university, are usually
watching India’s colourful soap operas.
While the program has had an impact, director T. Vishnu Vardhan admitted
there were some ominous findings. After CIS stopped supporting the Assamese
Wikipedia in January 2013, the 20 active editors all but left the site.
“The decline over the last three months also alerts us to the possibility
of building dependencies on the program, which is a concern that we need to
address going forward,” Vishnu said. ”We need to ensure this community and
new people are sustained, that we engage them keep and them interested by
showing them the excitement of being part of open knowledge building.”
Ultimately, Vardhan hopes this capacity building exercise will spark a
self-fulfilling cycle of local Wikipedia content production and
consumption. These reach of these tools is growing as last month, mobile
operator Aircel and Wikimedia India announced that subscribers could freely
access m.wikipedia.org, available in 19 Indian languages, from their mobile
phones.
“Everyone is now Googling stuff but what if an ordinary Urdu-speaking guy
sitting in Lucknow, using a smartphone, wants to learn about Delhi? Where
is the content? While the majority of the population understands bits and
pieces of English they’re not fluent in writing or reading and still need
to access information in their mother tongue. This is where I personally
see a huge potential for Indian language Wikipedias,” Vardhan said.*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
Important Note : Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes only.
The publisher ( Techcrunch ) of the above news article owns the copyrights
of the article / content. All copyrights are duly acknowledged.
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Belayet Hossain
http://www.facebook.com/bellayethttp://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:bellayethttp://twitter.com/bellayethttp://bellayet.wordpress.com (Bangla)
Knowledge is universal
...so share it.
Dear All,
I am planning an event for Wikipedians or Wikimedians on the occasion of
Ramadan month. How is that, if we can arrange an Iftar for the Wikipedians?
I think that will be nice meetups for All of us, as well as great occasion
to discuss the future plans and arrangements about the Wikimedia Movement
in Bangladesh.
Please let me know your views, ideas and suggestions about the event.
Regards,
Belayet
--
Belayet Hossain
http://www.facebook.com/bellayethttp://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:bellayethttp://twitter.com/bellayethttp://bellayet.wordpress.com (Bangla)
Knowledge is universal
...so share it.
FYI
--
Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive
Sent from my iPhone
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Jay Walsh" <jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Jul 25, 2013 10:26 AM
Subject: [Wikimedia Announcements] (press release) Aircel partners with
Wikimedia Foundation to offer free mobile Wikipedia access through
Wikipedia Zero
To: <wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc:
(This press release is also posted online at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Aircel_partners_with_Wik…
)
Aircel partners with Wikimedia Foundation to offer free mobile
Wikipedia access through Wikipedia Zero
[Aircel subscribers to be the first in India to have free access to
Wikipedia on their mobile phones]
SAN FRANCISCO and NEW DELHI -- July 25, 2013: Aircel and the Wikimedia
Foundation today announced a partnership to offer Wikipedia on mobile
phones without any data charges to Aircel customers. The alliance is
aimed at making knowledge available on Wikipedia accessible to all
Aircel customers in both rural and urban areas for free. This is the
first service of its kind to formally launch in India.
This partnership is part of the Wikimedia Foundation's Wikipedia Zero
program, which focuses on reaching the billions of people around the
world whose primary opportunity to access the internet is via a mobile
device. The partnership will help provide Wikipedia to 60 million new
users in the region.
Anupam Vasudev, Chief Marketing Officer for Aircel, said, "Through our
alliance with the Wikimedia Foundation, Aircel is not only making
internet services reach a wider audience, but also helping to
encourage and enrich the lives of our customers by offering access to
knowledge and information free of cost. We are excited about this
partnership and hope this initiative will benefit all our customers
from various age groups."
"We hail Aircel’s commitment to enhancing and expanding access to free
knowledge for their mobile customers. With the partnership, we extend
our program to India where we potentially reach millions of people for
the first time." said Kul Takanao Wadhwa, Head of Mobile with the
Wikimedia Foundation. "Aircel is one of the operators across the globe
that has contributed towards expanding free access to Wikipedia Zero
to 470 million mobile users."
Aircel customers will be able to access versions of Wikipedia in
English, Hindi, Tamil, and 17 other Indic languages.
Aircel is a young, data led telecom player and has been continuously
innovating products and services to offer convenience to its young
customers. The company has recently introduced various noteworthy data
products like Pocket Internet Smart and the recent Pocket Internet 24,
which offers internet at less than 1 rupee a day. Therefore, Aircel
aims to empower and inspire the youth by enhancing their data
experience.
Questions and answers about this partnership can be found at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships#Aircel
About Aircel Limited
http://www.aircel.com
Aircel is one of India’s leading pan India operators. It won 3G
spectrum in 13 circles and BWA spectrum in 8 circles and has
successfully launched 3G services which is the fastest 3G roll out
ever in the Indian Telecom Space. Aircel has been constantly
innovating products and services and is credited with making 3G
affordable to masses by launching Pocket Internet Smart which offers
best value 3G packs. Aircel Pocket Internet Smart gave a boost to 3G
adoption in the country as it is a true value for money product that
allows consumers to access unlimited 3G data at extremely affordable
prices. Aircel has positioned itself as a data led telecom player and
has addressed the multi-functionality of a mobile phone in many
innovative ways which are Industry firsts, be it the Aircel Pocket
Internet, Pocket Internet Games and Facebook Voice Updates on Aircel.
Aircel is also a preferred telecom network to launch Apple iPhone 3GS,
iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5. For more information, please log on
to www.aircel.com.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.orghttp://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 517 million unique visitors per month, making them
the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, April 2013).
Available in 285 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 25 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation
is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through
donations and grants.
Wikimedia Foundation media contact
Matthew Roth
Communications
+1 415-839-6885 ext 6635 (San Francisco)
mroth(at)wikimedia.org
Aircel media contact
Bhavya Suri
Corporate Communications
+ 91 8802999046 (India)
bhavya.suri(at)aircel.co.in
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately
directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia
community. For more information about Wikimedia-l:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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FYI...
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 09:15:06 +0200
From: Michał Buczyński <sandbox(a)o2.pl>
To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Survey on Wikimedia Chapters
Message-ID: <2493e313.41259367.51ef7efa.70a76(a)o2.pl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Hello all the people involved in Chapters!
I would like to invite you to take a part in a survey on WM Chapters.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Research/Surv…
As I briefly explained there, it is an effort agreed during WCA meetings,
taken to start gathering information about us and present it visibly. For
now, information about chapters is scattered, and often missing - and even
people wanting to highlight the chapters, build more bridges between them,
create some benchmarks and share solutions are lacking data about all the
local entities.
So, please help me in showing your Chapter and make sure your data are
there! :) The sooner, the better! :)
== Survey ==
For your convienience I set up two ways to respond: you can answer it
on-line using:
* MediaWiki: on a dedicated subpage on Meta
* Google Spreadsheet
Use whatever you find more suitable. If it is still not O.K. with you, you
can send me a spreadsheet via e-mail.
I know it is an additional work and the survey is far from being perfect,
but someone needed to start it. There is a talk page if you have any
comments.
== Outcome ==
First presentation will be given in Hong Kong. Further hopefully will come.
Thanks for your help!
Best Regards to everyone,
Michał "Aegis Maelstrom" Buczyński, Wikimedia Poland.
--
Belayet Hossain
http://www.facebook.com/bellayethttp://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:bellayethttp://twitter.com/bellayethttp://bellayet.wordpress.com (Bangla)
Knowledge is universal
...so share it.
প্রিয় সবাই,
রাজশাহী বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের ক্যারিয়ার ক্লাবের উদ্যোগে আগামী শনিবার (২০ জুলাই)
বিকেলে "বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়া" নিয়ে কর্মশালার আয়োজন করা হয়েছে।
আমি উক্ত কর্মশালাটি পরিচালনা করবো..আমার সাথে নাসির খান সৈকত যাওয়ার কথা ছিলো
কিন্তু বিশেষ কাজ পড়ে যাওয়ায় সে যেতে পারবে না..এখন আমার সাথে যাবে আমাদের
সক্রিয় উইকিপিডিয়ান জাহিদ হোসাইন খান..
এ আয়োজনে সহযোগী হিসেবে থাকছে ওপেন নলেজ ফাউন্ডেশন নেটওয়ার্ক বাংলাদেশ এবং
বাংলাদেশ ওপেন সোর্স নেটওয়ার্ক।
--
*Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive*
Blog Editor | Prothom-Alo Blog <http://www.prothom-aloblog.com>
Assignment Reporter | The Daily Prothom-Alo <http://www.prothom-alo.com>
Bangladesh Ambassador | Open Knowledge Network Foundation
(OKFN)<http://www.okfn.org>
Auto-confirmed, Reviewer & Roll backer Editor | Bangla
Wikipedia<http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:nhasive>
Treasurer & Coordinator (PR) | Bangladesh Open Source Network
(BdOSN)<http://www.bdosn.org>
Coordinator (PR) | Society for the Popularization of Science, Bangladesh
(SPSB) <http://www.spsb.org>*
*Central Team MOVers | Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad Committee
(BdMO)<http://www.matholympiad.org.bd>
Facebook: fb.com/nhasive | Twitter:
@nhasive<http://www.twitter.com/nhasive>| Skype: nhasive |
www.nhasive.com
Dear All,
We are planning to arrange an Wikipedia workshop for the student of East
West University, Dhaka. We need volunteers to design the
curriculum/possible topics and make the presentation and conduct the
workshop according to the curriculum.
If you are interested and have enough time for the workshop please raise
your voice and let me know through this mailing list or personal email or
my talk page at Bangla Wikipedia.
Please circulate the message, so that we can reach possible maximum number
of Wikipedians.
Regards,
Belayet
--
Belayet Hossain
http://www.facebook.com/bellayethttp://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:bellayethttp://twitter.com/bellayethttp://bellayet.wordpress.com (Bangla)
Knowledge is universal
...so share it.
Shabab and others,
Previously, Doc James (user:jmh649), a Canadian medical doctor and
contributor to Wikipedia health content, had asked me if I could explore
options for him to visit Bangladesh and present Wikipedia to doctors and
medical students there. He talked about doing this on the way to Wikimania.
I must close this offer - it is not going to be possible this year because
of an impossibility in his schedule. We both still are interested in
working with Bangladeshi Wikipedians in some way.
Doc James is not going to be able to come to Bangladesh on the way to
Wikimania as he had hoped, and I also will not be able to do this. We are
both still interested in Bangladesh and I certainly will return, hopefully
in 1-2 years. Please do not plan any event on any schedule, but remember
that some people here have interest in doing something in Bangladesh
eventually.
In answer to your questions -
1. There are two projects and they have confusingly similar names.
WikiProject Medicine is a typical WikiProject which seeks to improve
articles about health. It is unusual compared to other projects because it
is especially active and because its guidelines for sourcing are
well-policed and enforced because members feel that bad health information
must be prevented from appearing on-wiki. Wiki Project Med Foundation is
the name of an incorporated organization founded by members of WikiProject
Medicine (English). The idea is to support health projects in all languages
and do things beyond Wikipedia, such as add images to Commons and
participate in Wikidata, as well as to partner with external organizations
like government health organizations and non-profit organizations.
2. English Wikipedia users already appreciate the health content on English
Wikipedia. It seems to be the case that Wikipedia is the most consulted
source of health information in the world, and health articles are among
the most popular articles on Wikipedia. Much of this information comes from
doctors and medical students who seem to think that they get value from
adding content here. The public likewise seems to want health information
on Wikipedia.
3. Improving health content in Bangla seems to be a good opportunity
because the Wikimedia Movement wants to develop languages in developing
countries. Since Bangla is one of the world's most spoken languages, and
since Bangla Wikipedia is underdeveloped, and since there are projections
that the number of Bangla speakers who are using the Internet is increasing
a lot, it seems like Bangla Wikipedia would be a great target for the
movement to develop.
4. The project of targeting health information on Bangla Wikipedia is my
own proposal. Other people are interested in general translation to any
language, such as in the Translation Task
Force<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Translation_Tas…>.
The entire Wikimedia movement wants more interconnection between countries,
and if I were to propose a place with a small Wikipedia community and big
potential for impacting a lot of people, I think that Bangla Wikipedia is a
great candidate. See other options at List of Languages by number of
speakers<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers>.
There is a new Wikipedian in Residence at the World Health Organization. I
think he also would be sympathetic.
5. It may be the case that Bangla-speaking doctors prefer to read
information in English. However, typical people have a right to have some
information also. In the United States, people who are diagnosed with a
disease or condition often want to look online to get more information
about it than their doctor gives them. Sometimes also they want to read
about effects of drugs or medical procedures. Sometimes they want to share
this information with friends and family members as they make health
decisions. Because health information in English has been so popular, we
presume that it will be popular in other languages, but have no proof of
that.
I am still interested in doing something to develop health content in
Bangla. There are lots of ideas of things to do. One benefit that I could
imagine is that there might be researchers in Bangladesh who cannot afford
to purchase subscriptions to academic journals at Western prices, and
perhaps we could apply for a grant to fund journal subscriptions to any
university that would spend part of their time putting information
information - perhaps health information and perhaps other information -
onto Wikipedia to promote general public education. Whatever happens it
should come with support from local Bangla speakers. Local people
understand public need much better than any outsider, but if some kind of
health information is wanted, I think that there are people who would like
to support Bangladesh in getting it.
Thoughts?
thanks,
On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 2:58 PM, Shabab Mustafa <shabab.mustafa(a)gmail.com>wrote:
> Hi Lane,
>
> Hope you are doing well.
>
> As I saw your mail the other day, I started to make some phone calls and
> trying the get in touch with some people in Medical Field. Soon I have
> found that I know far too little about the Wiki Medicine project than I
> thought I knew of. You know, talking to an expert about his/her own field
> it very difficult when you have too little about it.
>
> Here I need to know answers of some non-technical questions that I was
> asked,
>
> 1. What is the goal of WikiProject Medicine?
> 2. Who will be benefited from this project?
> 3. How it can add some value to the mass?
> 4. Who are working behind this project?
> 5. Why one should care to have these information in his own language when
> the English version is available and he knows that language?
>
> Well, I thing that's all I need for the time being. I will keep posted
> about feedback I receive.
>
> PS. Please give me your Google id that we can be connected in Google Talk.
>
> Best,
> ---
> Shabab Mustafa
>
--
Lane Rasberry
206.801.0814
lane(a)bluerasberry.com
FYI...
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Siebrand Mazeland (WMF) <smazeland(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: 6 June 2013 21:05
Subject: [Mediawiki-i18n] Language Engineering office hour on 2013-06-12 at
17:00 UTC/10:00 PDT
To: MediaWiki Tech list <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia Mailing
List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, MediaWiki internationalisation <
mediawiki-i18n(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Event Details
# Date: 2013-06-12
# Time: 1700-1800 UTC, 1000-1100 PDT
#IRC channel: #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net
The Wikimedia Language Engineering team [1] invites everyone to join the
team’s monthly office hour on June 12, 2013 (Wednesday) at 1700 UTC/1000
PDT in #wikimedia-office. During this session we would be talking about
some our recent activities and updates from the ongoing projects. The
provisional agenda is outlined below.
See you all at the IRC office hour!
Siebrand Mazeland
Product Manager Language Engineering
Wikimedia Foundation
Agenda
# Introductions
# Universal Language Selector - Phase 1 deployment was on Tuesday
2013-06-11 [2,3,4]
# Universal Language Selector - Phase 2 and later
# Q/A - We shall be taking questions during the session. Questions can also
be sent to "siebrand at wikimedia dot org" before the event, and will be
addressed during the office hour.
[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Language_Engineering_team
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector/FAQ
[4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector/Design
_______________________________________________
Mediawiki-i18n mailing list
Mediawiki-i18n(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-i18n
--
Belayet Hossain
http://www.facebook.com/bellayethttp://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:bellayethttp://twitter.com/bellayethttp://bellayet.wordpress.com (Bangla)
Knowledge is universal
...so share it.
FYI...
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nitika Tandon <nitika(a)cis-india.org>
Date: 9 May 2013 21:24
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-BN] CIS-A2K Work Plan (Draft)
To: Bengali Wikipedia <wikipedia-bn(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Dear All,
Please note that the work plan for Bengali[1] and Konkani[2] Wikipedia have
now been updated. We look forward to your suggestions and comments.
Thanks
Nitika Tandon
Program Manager
Access to Knowledge<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge>
The Centre for Internet & Society
[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_20…
[2]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_20…
On 19-Apr-2013, at 6:46 PM, Vishnu t wrote:
Dear All,
CIS-A2K Team would like to share with you it's draft Work Plan (2013-2014)
for Indian language Wikimedia projects. The detailed work plan can be found
here. [1] The main objective of this document is to present a detailed
plan with projection of outcomes and expected impact of the A2K programme
activities, during the next 15 months.
The A2K team has, over the last two months, extensively engaged with
various stakeholders in developing these plans. These include a) some
Wikimedia India Community members across various Indian language Wikimedia
projects; b) some English Language Wikimedia community members from India;
c) Wikimedia India Chapter Executive Committee; d) some potential
institutional partners; e) a few like minded advocates of free knowledge;
f) A2K Programme Adviser Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana; and last but not least g)
a few of the Wikimedia Foundation staff. We are extremely thankful to all
of them who have taken time out in sharing their ideas and opinions and in
actively giving feedback, which has helped us immensely in drawing up these
plans. This document has been made keeping in mind the objectives,
opportunities and challenges faced by each of the Indian language Wikimedia
projects.
We welcome your feedback and suggestions to further refine these
plans. However, for the sake of structured engagement, we would request you
to *please read the following guidelines [2] on how to share your
feedback.*We would deeply appreciate if you could share your valuable
feedback in the
next three weeks based on which we will revise the plans.
Looking forward to receiving your inputs.
Thank you,
T. Vishnu Vardhan
Programme Director
Access to Knowledge<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge>
The Centre for Internet and Society
[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_20…
[2]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_20…
_______________________________________________
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--
Belayet Hossain
http://www.facebook.com/bellayethttp://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:bellayethttp://twitter.com/bellayethttp://bellayet.wordpress.com (Bangla)
Knowledge is universal
...so share it.