WikimediaIndia-l November 2010

wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

39 participants
69 discussions

Bangalore 22nd Wikimeetup on Dec 18 , with Erik / Danese / Alolita
by CherianTinu Abraham 29 Nov '10

29 Nov '10

Hi all, I am extremely pleased to announce the 22nd Wikipedia /Wikimedia Wikimeetup , Bangalore on *Dec 18, Satuday* with *Erik Möller *( Deputy Director , Wikimedia Foundation) , * Danese Cooper* ( Chief Technical Officer, Wikimedia Foundation) and* Alolita Sharma* (Engineering Programs Manager, Wikimedia Foundation). More details can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MBL22 Please do signup on the meetup page & participate ... Regards Tinu Cherian N.B. Please note the change of date/day of the usual Wikimeetup for Decemeber month.

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Hindi Wikisource Project
by Anirudh Bhati 27 Nov '10

27 Nov '10

Dear Hindi Wikimedians, A proposal was made in May 2008 to incubate and start-up the Hindi Wikisource Project. Before the transition, the Oldwikisource Hindi project had over 1500 pages. This content needs to be exported to a new Wikisource platform which has not yet been approved because Hindi interface requires further translation of messages. There are over 250 messages that need to be translated before the project may be approved. This should be treated on a priority basis. If you are interested in supporting the localization efforts, please visit the proposal page on Meta[1] and comment. If you require translator rights assigned on translatewiki.net please contact either John Vandenberg[2] or me offlist. Thanks. [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikisource_Hindi [2] jayvdb at gmail dot com anirudh 00 91 9328712208

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Some issues about Wikipedia
by Ashwin Baindur 26 Nov '10

26 Nov '10

Hi Anay, I saw your email to Jimbo on the Wikimedia-India email group, forwarded by Bishakha for info of all. I recall meeting your reps in the lecture, one of whom was a lady. I had mentioned some issues to them. These are the same issues that are not addressed/appear not to be understood in your email. Firstly, Wikipedia, whether English or Marathi, is an encyclopaedia. For uploading complete texts, the correct Wikimedia project is Marathi WikiSource not Marathi Wikipedia. Secondly, if the desire is to introduce this material into Marathi Wikipedia, the large amount of material you offer to make available has to be sifted and converted and integrated, fact by fact with Neutral Point of View, and proper citation. The material can be converted into new articles or added to existing articles, but will have to conform to the writing style of an encyclopaedia, as per the format indicated in the Manual of Style for Marathi Wikipedia. En masse copying is not possible, even for copyright-free or public domain material. At the very least, editing to fit into the existing article and citation is a must, even if you want to copy-paste small chunks of text. All content creation work in Wikipedia/Wikimedia projects is done by volunteers without renumeration. Thus, the uploading, article-creation, editing, etc will have to be done by your people or by volunteers whom you can get to agree to help you. This is not at all a trivial task. Thirdly, the government has to explicitly state that the material provided has been released into public domain, or under a free license, else the material cannot be uploaded to Wikisource, Wikimedia projects use the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution…>. No restrictions in use, such as "No commercial use"or "No derivatives" etc, are permitted in Creative Commons licenses used in the Wikipedia world. The only restrictions permitted are that the reused Wikipedia material (article/book/material etc) must be offered under the same or similar free license as Wikipedia downstream to other users and that the use must be attributed. Lastly, I strongly recommend your team who will be handling the project become Wikipedia editors as there are a large number of domain knowledge issues, which will affect your progress and success. I hope this email is helpful in helping you understand the larger picture. I wish you all the very best in this and other noble ventures that the Observer Research Foundation Mumbai is involved in. Happy Editing, Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur or User:AshLIn on English Wikipedia. ------------------------------------------------------

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Fwd: Hi from Observer Research Foundation Mumbai
by Bishakha Datta 26 Nov '10

26 Nov '10

Forwarding two emails from Anay Joglekar, one below the other - related to Marathi wikipedia. Highlights are his; will upload the report separately and inform the list. Sudheendra Kulkarni, who heads ORF is a former IIT alumnus and journalist who was a close aide to AB Vajpayee and quit the BJP in 2009. All thoughts welcome. Bishakha ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Anay Joglekar <anay.joglekar(a)gmail.com> Dear Jimmy Wales, Your lecture and interaction on Wikipedia in India was delightful. I feel lucky to know about it just 24 hours earlier completely by chance (while surfing Wikipedia Marathi) and getting an opportunity to interact with you. I am thankful to Kundan and Bishakha for being so responsive and forthcoming. We look forward to meet soon and discuss possibilities of cooperation and the role Observer Research Foundation can play in further popularising Wiki movement in Indian languages. I am sharing with you the note I shared with Bishakha which summarises work and point of view of ORF Mumbai. Also find attached a report by IAMAI on content in Indian languages. I will appreciate if you could forward me a copy of your presentation. Many of my friends would like to see it. Regards, Anay Joglekar Associate Fellow Observer Research Foundation Mumbai 9769474645 [image: orf-logo.jpg] * * *ORF Research Report: ICT for Maharashtra, ICT through Marathi* * * *Summery * Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are transforming our world in revolutionary ways. However, the doors of the New World being created by ICT are mostly shut for a majority of the people in India. For at the signboards at its entrance is written: "English-speaking People Preferred." Those who speak only Marathi (and this is true for other native Indian languages, too) cannot (*by default and easily*) use computer and mobile phones in Marathi or send email and sms in Marathi. There is very little useful information in Marathi on the Internet, even though it offers an ocean of information in English. Ironically, the much-trumpeted e-Governance measures have remained mostly English-Governance initiatives. Thus, the linguistic divide is further deepening the Digital Divide in Maharashtra and the rest of India. This has also created a mortal threat to the future of Marathi and other Indian languages, since the young generation has come to believe that learning in Marathi is useless and English education alone provides the passport to prosperity. The Observer Research Foundation Mumbai believes that this situation of exclusive development is unacceptable. Maharashtra, which is celebrating its golden jubilee year, must take determined steps to secure for Marathi an honoured placed in the ICT Revolution. Hence we published “*महाराष्ट्रासाठी माहिती तंत्रज्ञान**,** **मराठीतून माहिती तंत्रज्ञान**”* (ICT for Maharashtra, ICT through Marathi) report along with Marathi Abhyas Kendra. The report describes how other countries in the world, such as Israel, China, Japan and Korea have developed ICT in there own languages, thereby achieving phenomenal results. It shows promotion of ICT in Marathi can create employment, self-employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for Marathi-speaking people on a large scale, both in urban and in rural areas, besides bridging regional disparities in the state. It calls for a big boost to be given to e-education, telemedicine, e-banking, e-commerce, ICT-assisted agriculture and e-justice throughMarathi. E-Governance in Marathi can bring government closer to the common people, and make it transparent and accountable. Most importantly, ICT in Marathi can help protect and further enrich Maharashtra’s priceless heritage of arts, culture, literature, cinema, and endangered folk traditions. To realize this vision, the report urges the Government to (a) ensure affordable broadband connectivity, with speeds comparable to the highest in the world, in every corner of the state; (b) make it compulsory for computer and mobile companies to make their products and services Marathi-compatible; (c) universalize use of Unicode Marathi, beginning with its introduction in all official communication and websites; (d) *incentivise* *digital content creation in **Marathi** on a massive scale*; and (e) give special focus to bring Marathi-speaking youth women, SC/STs, OBCs and other weaker sections of society within the ambit of ICT Revolution. In short, promotion of ICT in Marathi is indispensable for the all-round, accelerated and inclusive development of Maharashtra. Can we aim for anything less in the Golden Jubilee Year of the state? Important announcements made by the chief minister while inaugurating the ORF Report – 1. Government to allocate Rs. 10 million for digitization of copyright free literature, manuscripts and important documents. 2. Government will make 18 volumes of Marathi Encyclopedia available on the internet in Unicode text format. 3. Government will make sure that In-script (bi-lingual) keyboards will be easily available everywhere in the state. 4. All the websites of the Government of Maharashtra will be made available in Unicode Marathi. 5. Promised to call a meeting of representatives of leading ICT companies and asked ORF to decide agenda for localization in Marathi. *Some Quick Facts/Points – * * * 1. Total Telephone subscriber base reached to 706.37 Million (Wireless 670.60 + Wireline 35.77) 2. Broadband subscription is 10.08 million. *TRAI Report Aug 2010* 3. Peak connection speed – 4.7 mbps (0.5%), Above 2 mbps speed (4.3%) average connection speed – 800 kbps, Below 256 kbps (30%) *AKMAI Q2** *** 4. Internet Users – Claimed – 71 million, Active users 52 million (use internet more than once a month) and Users aware of vernacular content 13 million *IAMAI Vernacular Content Report 2009 ** *** 5. Rural Internet Users – 6.46 million, Active Users – 4.18 million (Rural Population: > 750 million) 6. Times of India (World’s highest circulated English newspaper) ranks 8thamong top 10 Indian Newspapers (readership). Other 9 are Indian languages. Same is true about television viewership in India. Out of around 250 TV channels, most popular channels are in Indian languages. 7. On the other hand when it comes to Wikipedia pages – Hindi(57,287), Marathi(31,400), Bengali (21886), Tamil (25,627) against 3.4 million pages in English, 1.13 million in German, 1.01 million in French – Even Hebrew has 1,10,364 pages. * * *Making keying of Indic content default, easy and in standardized form will take few more years. Therefore we believe that Wikipedia India shall collaborate with governments, publishers and other institutions which have large volumes of textual resources, copyrights free and suitable for encyclopedia projects and make it available on the internet and organizations like ORF which share this agenda. It will create greater awareness among Netizens in India about vernacular content and will encourage them to edit and add new content.* ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Anay Joglekar <ajoglekar(a)orfonline.org> Date: 30 October 2010 14:56 Subject: About Observer Research Foundation Mumbai and Possibility of meeting with Mr. Jimmy Wales To: kundanamitabh(a)gmail.com Dear Kundan Amitabh, I am glad to email you on the backdrop of the 3rd Wikipedia Meet-up in Mumbai. I would like to attend the event along with few colleagues of mine from Observer Research Foundation Mumbai. Observer Research Foundation (ORF) is a leading non-partisan Indian think tank that seeks to influence public policy formulation. It was established in New Delhi in 1990 by the late R.K. Mishra, a widely respected public figure, who envisaged it as a broad-based intellectual platform pulsating with ideas needed for India’s nation-building. In its journey of twenty years, ORF has brought together leading Indian policymakers, academics, public figures, social activists and business leaders to discuss various issues of national importance. ORF scholars have made significant contributions toward improving government policies. ORF has so far produced a large body of critically acclaimed publications. Until recently, ORF’s activities were based mainly in New Delhi. Beginning in 2010, ORF Mumbai has been established to pursue the Foundation’s vision in India’s business and financial capital. *Shri Sudheendra Kulkarni*, former aide to Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Shri L.K. Advani and a columnist in the Indian Express is its chairman.ORF Mumbai conducts research and advocacy in six broad areas: Education, Public Health, Inclusive Development, Urban Renewal, Youth Development, and *Protection and Promotion of India’s Priceless Artistic and Cultural Heritage*. Indian languages which represent India's rich ethos, culture and heritage and are facing the threat of extinction. Our neglect towards making available benefits of ICT revolution through Indian languages has caused widening digital divide. On one hand, there are issues related to standardization (complete localization) and making various softwares and operating systems in Indian languages available by default and on the other hand, there are serious issues of content creation in Indian languages. ORF organised a roundtable on *ICT for and through Marathi* in March 2010 and brought together representatives of state govt., media, IT companies along with grass root activists. As a followup ORF published a research report - *महाराष्ट्रासाठी माहिती तंत्रज्ञान, मराठीतून माहिती तंत्रज्ञान*<http://orfmumbai.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/marathi-report-final-060610.pdf>. It was released by the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Shri Ashok Chavan on 07 Sept. 2010. ORF Mumbai is willing to work closely with the government and private sector to make more content available in Indian languages. As part of this - we have pledged to increase content on Wikipedia (Marathi) 10 times within a year through public participation. We are working with the state government to make available - voluminous Encyclopedia (मराठी विश्वकोश) on the internet in Unicode Marathi (currently they are in scanned format). It will be our great pleasure for us to participate in tomorrow's meeting, get to know more about the plans of Wikipedia foundation and explore possibilities of working together. It will be great if you could explore possibility of a meeting between Mr. Wales and Mr. Sudheendra Kulkarni (this time or next time) or working together to spread wikipedia movement in Indian languages. Looking forward to see you tomorrow. Regards, Anay Joglekar Associate Fellow *Observer Research Foundation * NKM International House, 5th Floor, 178, Backbay Reclamation, Babubhai Chinai Marg, Mumbai 400 020. Ph: 022-6131 3800 Fax: 022 - 2288 6264 Cell: 9769474645 http://www.observerindia.com

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Wikipedia Meetup in Ahmedabad - 21 November 2010
by Anirudh Bhati 26 Nov '10

26 Nov '10

Hi all, The Ahmedabad Wikipedia Meetup was organized on 21 November 2010 at CEPT University. It was received with enthusiasm from the tech community of the city. Twenty-seven people attended the meet including the members of the press. The meeting began with a round of introductions. Most of the participants were from the marketing and PR side of the tech industry and expressed a keen interest in understanding how Wikipedia works. I began with a brief history of Wikipedia and the philosophy that guides our projects. Further discussions entailed [[WP:CORP]], naming conventions, difficulties faced by new users on English Wikipedia; localization with Gujarati projects; local events for Ahmedabad (viz. Wikipedia Takes Ahmedabad for photographers and Gujarati WikiAcademy). Kartik Mistry, who was formerly associated with Gujarati Lexicon, informed me that he had met the representatives of Wikimedia India at the last Mumbai meetup and expressed that his former associates would be interested in transferring content to the Gujarati Wiktionary. Keyur Parmar came up with a proposal for automated updation of cricket related facts, figures and stats from commercial websites. I have asked them to join this mailing list for following up with us. The pictures from the event are available here[1] and future notifications about the Ahmedabad meet up will be posted on the India mailing list and the newly created Ahmedabad mailing list.[2] The meetup was covered by DNA[3] and Divya Bhaskar.[4] Special thanks to CEPT Councilmen Vishnu Kolleri and Mustaqeem Khan for making this happen. [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ahmedabad_Meetup_Nov2010 [2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-amd [3] http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report_free-knowledge-for-all-in-gujarati… [4] http://www.divyabhaskar.co.in/article/MGUJ-AHM-free-knowledge-for-all-in-gu… anirudh 00 91 9328712208

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Inbuilt Tamil typing tool added in Tamil Wikimedia projects
by Ravishankar 26 Nov '10

26 Nov '10

Hi, We are glad to inform that inbuilt Tamil typing tool has been added in Tamil Wikipedia and Tamil WikiNews. After some testing, we will add it in other Wikimedia projects and release the code for use in all sites using MediaWiki. We hope that this will help many first time editors and increase Tamil word searches in the site search box. This was possible as a follow up of the recent Chennai Wikimedia meetup when Malayalam Wikimedia user Shiju Alex urged us to have this tool. Then Malayalam Wikimedia user Junaid. P. V. joined the team to transfer the code from Malayalam Wiki and modified it for Tamil needs. All work done in a week and three cheers for the interwiki collaborative spirit of Malayalam Wikipedians. Regards, Ravi

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You will love Erik Zachte for this :)
by Achal Prabhala 25 Nov '10

25 Nov '10

This is invaluable - thank you Erik, and thanks Gerard for bringing it to attention. Erik, I know that you report geographic trends on EN on the main stats page, is there any way you can easily and comprehensibly integrate India edits and readership to EN on the India page? That would be very helpful, esp. as it probably dominates all other Indian languages currently (and since English is an official Indian language too). Also, Shiju has been putting out India stats for some time now, and (Shiju) perhaps you can share/integrate what you do, in terms of depth, article quality and editorship with this information - perhaps you can have a conversation with Erik about this. Good wishes, Achal

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You will love Erik Zachte for this :)
by Achal Prabhala 25 Nov '10

25 Nov '10

Yes Gerard, I assumed it was obvious that we're talking about India-based traffic and edits to EN - the information is reported on the main stats page, my point was simply that it would be interesting to see in the same table (though we're measuring slightly different things, since the Indian language Wikipedia stats are not based on geographical origin but destination).

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Fwd: Your session at Filmi Chashma Workshop
by Bishakha Datta 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

Speaking at this tomorrow; came up suddenly. Apart from all else it does, Comet Media Foundation is developing GNUKhata, a free and flexible software for accounting and inventory management. See http://www.cometmedia.org/gnukhata I am in touch with a couple of Pune wikipedians to see if they could do the Dec workshop in Pune referred to below. Bishakha ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Comet Media Foundation <cometmediafdn(a)gmail.com> Date: Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 4:01 PM Subject: Your session at Filmi Chashma Workshop To: Bishakha Datta <bishakhadatta(a)gmail.com> Dear Bishakha This is further to our telephone talk on Saturday regarding the Filmi Chashma Workshop for school teachers. Please have a look at www.filmichashma.org for an overview of the project To go over the workshop requirements: Your session, scheduled 2.00 to 3.30pm on Thursday 25 Nov, will be on " Intro to the phenomenon of the wiki world, finding what you need in the wiki world and contributing what you know back to it." Beyond the utility of it please bring out the philosophy, the altruism and self-correcting mechanisms and all the things that make it an authentic upto-the-moment encyclopedia. Please also encourage them and their students to contribute to it, particularly in Indian languages. A visit to teh Hindi and Marathi wikipedias would be good. Plus we want you to please address another similar meeting in Pune on 17 Dec at 11.45 to 1.15. Please tell me if you are free to make a trip. The venue as you know, is in the conference room on 6th floor of the Times of India Building opposite VT station. Thank you and looking forward to an exciting time! Chandita

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Performing Indic Wikipedias
by Ravishankar 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

Hi, Based on Erik's Indic Wiki stats, I did an analysis for reach of Indic Wikipedias. Wikis having at least 1000 views an hour and 1 Million population were taken for this. Page views per article per hour indicates the overall usefulness of articles. Page views per million speakers indicates the reach of Wiki and also normalises the ranking by page view ( For example, Tamil has roughly 1/8th of Hindi speaking population but has more than half its traffic) The results can be seen at http://bit.ly/gdH21O Malayalam and Tamil Wikis are performing comparably and have a higher reach. Hindi and Bengali which have a huge population seem to have lesser reach. I hope Indic Wikimedia strategy will consider such analyses and focus to have a better return on their efforts and not mislead by plain article count and page views. Regards, Ravi

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WikimediaIndia-l November 2010