WikimediaIndia-l October 2010

wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

35 participants
53 discussions

Notification: Wikimedia-IN-Mum list is up and running
by Anirudh Bhati 07 Oct '10

07 Oct '10

Hi Mumbai Wikimedians, Please join the mailing list for Mumbai Wikimedians to help co-ordinate events and organize meet ups in your city. https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-mum Yours sincerely, Anirudh Singh Bhati B.Com, LL.B. (Hons.), Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar, India. Handphone: +919328712208 Skype: anirudhsbh If this email were legal advice, it would be followed by a bill.

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] community, chapter and foundation: who is who and who does what
by Achal Prabhala 07 Oct '10

07 Oct '10

Hi Nadig, when you do that, would it be possible to consolidate/redirect pages so that we don't have too many entry points floating about? I know you've done a lot of background work in keeping these domains going on your personal funds; still, to make them work, let's flag this as a chapter task. Makes it easier for everyone. Cheers, Achal

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community, chapter and foundation: who is who and who does what
by Achal Prabhala 07 Oct '10

07 Oct '10

Thanks Srikanth: I have substantially added to the page. Please take a look. And I hope some others might be interested in adding to/refining this information too? Once done, I'd suggest we put it out as a standard reference to anyone interested in us, especially from the media. The current page is: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India/Wikimedia101 Shiju's suggestion is to move this page (and any other public non-internal information) to http://wikimedia.in/wiki/Main_Page and it makes a lot of sense. If you agree, can you just move the whole thing over - and then send it out for others to use/add to and see? I think this will be quite useful going forward. Cheers, Achal

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community, chapter and foundation: who is who and who does what
by Achal Prabhala 07 Oct '10

07 Oct '10

Further on this, I think it would make sense for someone like Shiju to add a Wikimedia India project status: How many language Wikipedias in India exist, and what they are, what other language projects exist, what the stats say in terms of the number of Indians reading and editing Wikipedia, projects in need of help (in incubator or otherwise, etc. etc.) And finally, it will need all of us (or perhaps from the chapter) to constantly update this page with current information as it happens.

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community, chapter and foundation: who is who and who does what
by Achal Prabhala 06 Oct '10

06 Oct '10

I agree that the press coverage is (and always tends to be) a bit whacked when it comes to Wikipedia, Wikimedia and India. And it doesn't help that the explanation is pretty clear but complicated. In a few months, we will have the Wikimedia Foundation India office, the Wikimedia India chapter, and of course - as always - the Wikimedia community in India, not to mention various sub-community groupings. I can only see more confusion unfortunately. Perhaps you can set up something on India-meta? An explanation such as the one just offered (who does what) + something about the difference between Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects would be very useful for the press, if kept simple. Then we could point them to this page every time there's interest - or print it out and distribute it for subsequent press interactions as well. I'll help, and others will too - I'm sure - if you get it going.

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Tamil Wikipedia crosses the 25, 000 article mark
by BalaSundaraRaman 06 Oct '10

06 Oct '10

I'm pleased to inform you all that Tamil Wikipedia has crossed the 25,000 article milestone now. :-) - Sundar "That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted." - George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture

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who is the director of wikimedia india
by Bharat Nedungadi 06 Oct '10

06 Oct '10

hi, on the last page of this book (released last week) it says "Kiruba Shankar is CEO of Business Blogging and a Director at Wikimedia India which runs Wikipedia" http://www.krithya.in/rabbit/ has the wikimedia foundation already hired a national country director? i feel we as community should know about these things before they are announced generally. the announcement has been made publicly it seems: http://www.yourstory.in/expert-talk/guest-column/2902-kiruba-shankarbrain-b… http://www.businessblogging.org/facebookgarage/team http://ria-lize.blogspot.com/2009/10/ria-lization.html lots more as well. i am little confused.

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community, chapter and foundation: who is who and who does what
by Achal Prabhala 06 Oct '10

06 Oct '10

I agree that the press coverage is (and always tends to be) skewed when it comes to Wikipedia, Wikimedia and India. And it doesn't help that the explanation is pretty clear but complicated. In a few months, we will have the Wikimedia Foundation India office, the Wikimedia India chapter, and of course - as always - the Wikimedia community in India. I can only see more confusion! Perhaps you - or others - can set up something on India-meta? An explanation such as the one just offered (who does what) + something about the difference between Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects would be very useful for the press, if kept simple. Then we could point them to this page every time there's interest - or print it out and distribute it for subsequent press interactions as well. I'll help, and others will too - I'm sure - if you get it going.

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community, chapter and foundation: who is who and who does what
by Achal Prabhala 06 Oct '10

06 Oct '10

To add to the recent discussion on this list, perhaps a few clarifications are in order. All of you are familiar with yourselves - i.e. us - the community; people who edit, organise and otherwise help Wikimedia projects move ahead in interesting and productive ways. Many of those interesting and productive things happening here are captured in this first edition of the Wikimedia India Community Newsletter: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_India_Community_Newsletter… Then there is the chapter. Chapters are "independent organizations founded to support and promote the Wikimedia projects within a specified country." (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters). Chapters are approved by the Chapters Committee, constituted by folks whose mission is to further Wikimedia, and while affiliated to and recognised by the Wikimedia Foundation, are yet independent entities which plot their own course. Chapter efforts in India started up as early as 2004 and critical momentum was achieved from 2008 onwards, the result of which is that we now have an approved Wikimedia India chapter - awaiting registration in India as a non-profit organisation (for more see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India). The Wikimedia India chapter is currently being registered as a 'society' in Karnataka and will function as a national organisation. As a 'society' it is required to have founding 'members' - and in our case, those members are Arun (President), Sundar (Secretary), Hari (Treasurer), Gautam, Srinivas and Arjuna. (See: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India/MoA-PostChapComVer). Once the chapter is recognised as a legal entity within India, these members will serve as the Executive Committee of the organisation. Contrary to earlier discussions, the Wikimedia India chapter has never had 'Directors' or 'Directors (designate)' - it's a society, and societies have members. On operation, it will, of course, extend membership widely to anyone who wishes to join. Chapters have a wide variety of functions, all of which are evolving - for now, a crude summary of their purpose would be that they allow individuals from within the community to do more than they could normally do alone, besides providing the benefits of a formal, organisational setup to utilise when necessary. Then we have the Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation based in San Francisco that is the legal home of all Wikimedia projects. Over the last few years, the Wikimedia Foundation has grown in staff strength and capacity, and works to facilitate everything we do as volunteers from around the world. In the last few months, and on the basis of a strategic planning exercise (http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy) the Wikimedia Foundation decided to actively help a few geographies grow, one of which is India. The National Country Director job that Barry Newstead (Chief Global Development Officer) talked about on this list (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2010-August/000850.ht…) is a position that will report to him, which is to say, the staff employed at the Wikimedia Foundation office in India are exactly that, and not to be confused with the India chapter - they are a separate entity, an off-shoot of the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco, though they will obviously be working closely with both the community and the chapter. Further clarifications on the Wikimedia Foundation's office plans in India are available in this email from Barry (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2010-August/000849.ht…). I trust this helps somewhat in understanding the landscape. Cheers, Achal

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who is the director of wikimedia india
by Bharat Nedungadi 06 Oct '10

06 Oct '10

"The information you pointed out is old and has been duly removed. I have sent out a clarification email to the group that I'm in no way related to the Wikimedia Board." but your twitter feed as i can see now http://twitter.com/kiruba announces this book was published last week. strange. still confused mr kiruba shankar. i am sure you are an honest person but if you are not "director" of wikimedia foundation, then why there are so many links on the web that say you are? please google and see for yourself. i checked to see if you have made edits, and you do not seem to have done anything maybe except for some conflict of interest entries. just for my personal clarity: you are not a director of wikimedia foundation and never were, you are not associated with wikimedia india, you are not part of the india chapter, you are not a member of the india chapter executive committee and you are not a wikipedia editor. correct?

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WikimediaIndia-l October 2010