Moksh and I went to the Text100
office at Nariman Point on 6 January 2012. Aprox 25 people attended the
Workshop in person which was webcast live to Text100 offices in Delhi
and Bangalore. Through the 1 hour Workshop we covered the below and
answered several questions raised by attendees.
We covered the following:
1. Wikipedia Philosophy/5 Pillars (and that we do not have editorial control, that admins are nothing but editors with additional responsibilities. On what is done when there is an issue we explained the process upto Arbcom and that Jimbo has a veto which he has never used so far and has stated that he doesnt think he will).
2. Licensing (Explained Wikipedia is free licensed under CC-BY-SA)
3. What Wikipedia is NOT
4. NPOV/YESPOV
5. Be Bold and edit anything that is incorrect
6. Etiquette/AGF
7. Tutorial (Editing/Citations etc)
8. RS
9. CoI (Bell Pottinger affair)
Moksh
also gave a live editing example and we showed them how to sign on a
page with 4 tides (the attendees had actually typed their names on the Wiki page for
the workshop).
One of the participants mentioned official company photos
on Wikipedia articles. Explained that such photos on have been donated
to Commons and suggested that Text100 could also donate their photo
archives to Commons, which would be useful for several articles. They
sounded positive on this aspect - will be following up with them on this.
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
Greetings! This is a short note on Wikipedia Takes Mumbai II. Forty
people turned up near the Oval Maidan at Churchgate at 8 am yesterday. The
landmarks that were photographed included the Babulnath Temple, Nehru
Science Centre, Opera House, St Thomas Cathedral, INS Vikrant and Yazdani
Bakery. After the photos had been clicked many of the participants
proceeded to Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR where they were
shown how to upload to Commons using both the usual upload process and by
using the mediawiki-uploader mass upload script.
Nikita Belavate and Karthik Nadar put in a lot of work into the event. They
helped many people contribute to the Commons while having a good time, and
they deserve praise for making all of this happen.
Our heartfelt gratitude to Pranav Curumsey, Vickram Crishna, Dr
Nagarjuna, Noopur Raval and Moksh Juneja for all the help and mentoring.
Thanks to Shrinivasan T for mediawiki-uploader :) And apologies if I missed
anyone out.
Do visit our maintenance category
WTM<http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:WTM>,
specially created for the event. 313 pictures have been uploaded so far.
Sincerely
Anshuman Fotedar
PS:
1.
During the photowalk, some of the participants who were taking pictures of
Bombay House were interrupted by private security personnel and asked to
handover their cameras so that the pictures could be removed. Pranav
and Aditya Sengupta, who were among them, peacefully put forth the fact
that they were not not breaking any laws by photographing the structure
from the outside since it was not a legally protected one. They were
standing on the road, and not trespassing. To resolve the matter, Aditya,
Pranav and Krutikaa Jawanjal accompanied the security personnel to the
police station where they explained that they were within their rights to
do what they did, and that citizens of the country need not take prior
permission to take exterior photographs of private property that was not
accorded legal protection. The PSI on duty made a noting in his station
diary and informed us that Bombay House has security fears, which is why
one should speak to their bosses before taking pictures, but agreed with
them per se that there is no law that prohibits people from taking pictures
there.
2.
The group that went to Bombay House (and subsequently to Yazdani Bakery,
St. Thomas Cathedral) and other places was delayed owing to the incident
at Bombay House and discovered serendipitously that entry to INS Vikrant
was open. Covering Vikrant took a while, adding to the delay. Consequently
they (this includes me) never reached HBCSE but uploaded from home instead.
Although we did get several good contributions from the participants in
this group as well, I do recognise that it may have been nice if we could
have joined in with the participants who uploaded together at HBCSE. I
apologise.
DNA : Wikipedians set out on mission to capture Mumbai landmarks
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_wikipedians-set-out-on-mission-to-cap…
Armed with cameras and the belief that some of the city’s landmarks
deserve to be featured in cyberspace, a group of Wikipedia volunteers
trudged along Mumbai’s streets on Sunday, identifying notable spots and
capturing them on film.
The photographs will be contributed to Wikimedia Commons, a repository
for copyright-free images, sound and other media files.
“Mumbai has several monuments and famous spots. But, some of them find
little or no mention on Wikipedia,” said Anshuman Fotedar, a financial
analyst and member of the group.
The aim of the exercise was not just to put the city’s landmarks on the
virtual map but also to increase awareness of Wikipedia and its culture
in the city.
Fotedar added that many people want to give something back to the vast
online encyclopaedia but are unable to figure out how to start
contributing. “The English-language Wikipedia has grown quite a lot over
the years, thanks to the efforts of regular contributors. This exercise
was meant to introduce new contributors to areas they can help with,” he
said.
The group, comprising mostly students and young professionals, was,
however, stopped from taking pictures by security guards at the Bombay
House. In the end, the authorities agreed that shooting the building was
not prohibited.
Besides the photowalk, the group took part in discussions on other
projects that Wikipedia India volunteers are working on.
“There is an initiative called GLAM through which Wikipedia collaborates
with prominent art galleries and museums to help with articles related
to culture,” Fotedar said. Another project focuses on promotion of
Indian language Wikipedias.
--
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
Important Note : The publisher ( DNA ) of the above news article owns
the copyrights of the article / content. Request to kindly not reproduce
or circulate the content further. The information is only shared only
with an internal community who have been featured on this article. All
copyrights are duly acknowledged.
Times of India : "Shooting city for web viewers"
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-29/mumbai/30675607_1_wi…
MUMBAI: On Saturday morning, a group of 40 Mumbaikars armed with cameras
gathered outside the Oval Maidan before setting out on a photo-walk to
ensure their city is well-represented in the realms of cyberspace where
information can be accessed for free.
Speaking about the popular free online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, Nikita
Belavate, a student, said, "Many Wikipedia articles on city landmarks do
not have photos. We want to change that." Belavate was one of the
organizers of the photo scavenger hunt, 'Wikipedia Takes Mumbai', which
concluded in the afternoon.
At the end of the shoot, the group uploaded over 200 pictures to
Wikimedia Commons, the repository of free multimedia files that supplies
photos to all Wiki sites. "We took over 800 photos and will soon upload
the others," Belavate said.
The landmarks photographed included Babulnath Temple, Nehru Science
Centre and Bandra Talao. "We had a list of places like the mint and
Arthur Road Jail," said Neeraj Pattath, a volunteer photographer. "For
pictures that don't have a mention on the website yet, a new stub can be
created with a few lines describing them," said Pranav Curumsey, a
regular contributor to the site.
Financial analyst Anshuman Fotedar, who took pictures of St Thomas
Cathedral, INS Vikrant and Yazdani Bakery, said, "It was a way to learn
more about the city and its cultural history." For civil engineer Milind
Vedpathak, who photographed Kanheri, Mahakali and Mandapeshwar caves, it
was a "campaign to promote a side of Mumbai that wasn't about slums and
beggars".
The event was also meant to spread awareness about "Wiki culture". "We
helped people set up their Wiki user IDs and showed them how to use
Commonist, a tool that lets users upload large number of images," said
Karthik Nadar, a banking student.
--
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
Important Note : Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes
only. The publisher ( Times of India ) of the above news article owns
the copyrights of the article / content.
Hello All,
The *Photowalk* is just one day away. All Wikipedians from Mumbai, please
do join tomorrow. Assembling at 8am at Oval maidan, Forte (the ground in
front of Mumbai Uni). Also, HBCSE has agreed upon making their lab
available to us for upload of images to Commons. Thanks to Vickram uncle
and Dr.Nagarjuna :)
Hope to see you all !
Wiki Page link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Mumbai_II#Participan…
Warm Regards,
Nikita Belavate.
hi,
Should the Mumbai community pursue the bid for Wikimania 2013 or
withdraw it? Community input is welcome.
pradeep
Handheld
--
Pradeep Mohandas
How Pradeep uses email - http://goo.gl/6v1I9
Hey All,
We have the opportunity to participate in Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute tech fest Technovanza which is running from 3rd to 5th February. A "special thank you" note goes to Aditya Sengupta for helping us organise this. :-)
For more details about the fest please visit: http://technovanza.org/.
The organisers want us to hold a Wiki session on the 5th February, Sunday. Time is yet to be decided. I wanted to reach out to Mumbai folks and see if some of you can lead this session. Please let me know as soon as possible so that we can then confirm our participation to the organisers of the fest.
Awaiting your replies.
Thanks
Nitika