Hi,
In the membership application form, I see multiple options were provided to
the user for payment (like DD/Cheque/Online). This is very good that user
can choose easier option for him.
-> I would like to add one more option IMPS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbank_Mobile_Payment_Service
It just needs a mobile # and MMID of the payee.
-> Also, I would like to see ECS option. where in I don't need to remember
the payment every year. I will sign up ECS for say next 20 years. This
helps me auto renew my membership (unless I am not complaint to wikimedia
chapter protocol).
Please write your views
--
Thanks & Regards,
A.Radha Krishna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Arkrishna
Dear Bala,
>>
we dont want "kids", who will "mess up" by "drawing mangoes and bananas"
here. We want atleast semi competent, interested people who can act
responsibly.
*All I can say is that *EVERY KING WAS ONCE A CRYING BABY*.
Remember the day when you created your account on wikipedia. With all due
respect to your edit count at present and your current status at wiki, you
were also a KID on wikipedia at that day. A KID who has grown up now and
understands wikipedia well enough.
Same is the case with IEP students. Mastering wikipedia and coming to terms
with it is not a cakewalk. The students are learning from their mistakes.
As far as the Campus Ambassadors are concerned, yes there were a few
inactive ones. But there were also many CA's who put their heart and souls
into the program. Ram is one of them. In my opinion, judging a person's
knowledge about wikipedia by his edit count is not at all fair!
I would request you not to get personal. No doubt you are crossing the
limits, even you know that.
And for everyone who is following this thread, IEP is not dead for sure!
It's just that it met with an accident, got deeply wounded. Doctors are
doing their job.
IEP will be back - stronger and healthier !
Thanks,
Pratik Lahoti.
CA, CoEP.
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 1:08 PM, <
wikimediaindia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Send Wikimediaindia-l mailing list submissions to
> wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> wikimediaindia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> wikimediaindia-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Wikimediaindia-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot
> (Erik Moeller)
> 2. Re: Let's *Talk* (Erik Moeller)
> 3. Re: Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot
> (Ram Shankar Yadav)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:07:23 -0800
> From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian
> Education Program pilot
> To: Wikimedia India Community list
> <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAEg6ZHntaj3J+m-Ws8ccWRrpPt0vR2dHsH6ZnLdmjFoV4ErA2w(a)mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 10:45 PM, Bala Jeyaraman <sodabottle(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > This sums up the problem of the IEP -? designed by people clueless about
> how
> > en wiki works and run by "campus ambassadors" who view wikipedia as a
> giant
> > sandbox to play with students.
>
> Speaking of playing in sandboxes, just for you, a nice shallow blog
> post that applies:
>
>
> http://www.smallact.com/blog/3-keys-to-playing-nicely-in-the-social-media-s…
>
> Enjoy the sand,
> Erik
> --
> Erik M?ller
> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:38:09 -0800
> From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Let's *Talk*
> To: Wikimedia India Community list
> <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAEg6ZH=hptDAZRq2=et19whrcPAP=Zkrbuaxy8-h9FvE5YcM+w(a)mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Well said, Hisham, Srikeit at al. Nobody's asking for rah-rah
> excitement. Being dispassionate and critical is the goal. Being
> hostile and dickish is unhelpful -- there's no possible useful end
> that could serve.
>
> So: If you're adding more heat than light to a conversation, please
> don't join the conversation. If you're attacking others and calling
> into question their legitimacy in being here, without them having
> violated any of the ground rules of good faith behavior, you begin
> violating those norms yourself. Calm down, have a tea, and read some
> good poetry (or write it, if you're truly suffering :-).
>
> At WMF, we'd be completely happy to abandon the Global Education
> Program model altogether if it turned out to be a failure, and we'd be
> happy to abandon it for India or other countries if it turned out to
> be a failure there. Nobody wants to spend $$$ and blood/sweat equity
> (the only type that exists in nonprofits) on stuff that isn't
> achieving its intended impact.
>
> So far, however, what I've seen is a very successful US initiative
> followed by an India pilot which has encountered very serious, deep
> challenges with contribution quality. The analysis that I've seen so
> far really suggests that what it comes down to is abject contribution
> quality by lots of the participating students and a routine pattern of
> copyright infringement (and I would label it plagiarism if they're not
> identifying the source). Let me know if I got that wrong.
>
> That sucks, but if so, that's a problem that needs to be named to be
> tackled in a serious fashion. No amount of tweaking the program
> parameters would have solved the issues of the scale and type that
> have been pointed out. This goes to the fundamentals.
>
> And - to stay with the sandbox metaphor from another thread - if the
> majority of contributors to a university-based program in India can
> reach won't be able to contribute at an acceptable quality in WP
> proper, then perhaps it's also time to think about more aggressive
> sandboxing of contributions early in the game, at least when we're
> dealing with a course where we either don't know what to expect, or we
> _do_ based on experiences like the one to date. Possibly even using an
> external sandbox.
>
> Lastly, let's not forget that we haven't made any determination as to
> what the best methods are to gain, and keep, great new contributors in
> India (or elsewhere, for that matter). We can, and should, continue to
> experiment with many different approaches, including some of the
> suggestions that have been made in previous threads.
>
> All the energy, including the occasional flamewar, that I'm seeing
> here really speaks tons to the strengths of the India community as a
> whole. Energy, creativity, intelligence and healthy tension are the
> ingredients of success, not failure.
>
> Srikeit, I'll unfortunately miss your talk on Saturday as I'll be at
> the hackathon. But I look forward to hearing about it and hopefully
> catching up on Friday. :-)
> --
> Erik M?ller
> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:08:21 +0530
> From: Ram Shankar Yadav <ramshankaryadav(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian
> Education Program pilot
> To: Wikimedia India Community list
> <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CABUU066+kCEk6fXkKEVFgbv-T1KvDag_UMaTk+78qx5-ZUgnUw(a)mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
> *This is exactly the kind of cluelessness i am referring to. The
> [[WP:COMPETENCE]] exists exactly for this purpose - we dont want "kids",
> who will "mess up" by "drawing mangoes and bananas" here. We want atleast
> semi competent, interested people who can act responsibly.*
> *
> *
> *- *First of all stop playing those policy games, before looking at
> [[WP:COMPETENCE]] I would rather say to have a look at [[WP:DONTBITE]].
>
> *But then, i should expect this general cluelessness and ignorance from a
> "campus ambassador" with a grand total of 41 mainspace edits?. *
> *
> *
> - Dude you are getting personal here, I respect you obsession with numbers
> but the whole idea of a "campus ambassador" is to help others to edit,
> instead of writing articles for edit count. You just took one number and
> creating all the fuss but you ignored others like ...
>
> Total Edits :705 (in last 5 months)
> Article 49 7.09%
> Talk 6 0.87%
> *User 185 26.77%*
> *User talk 238 34.44%*
> *Wikipedia 144 20.84%*
> Wikipedia talk 26 3.76%
> Template 37 5.35%
> Help 6 0.87%
>
> For more stats :
>
> http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/pcount/index.php?name=Ramshankaryadav&lang=…
>
> Apart from the numbers we got the experience of personally touching 1000+
> students and interacting with Faculty and Directors, which you can not do
> by siting and editing Wikipedia in your living room. I'm not a 14000+
> editor like you but I share the same philosophy of free knowledge, but
> instead of respecting us you are doing all the mud throwing, it's not
> acceptable at all!!
>
> *This sums up the problem of the IEP - designed by people clueless about
> how en wiki works and run by "campus ambassadors" who view wikipedia as a
> giant sandbox to play with students.*
> - You are crossing your limits here, we have repeatedly accepted our faults
> but this is too much, we tried something new things, and few worked few
> didn't by it doesn't gives you the authority to say whatever you like to!
> Instead of coming up with "How we can make it better" you are more into the
> mode of "You did it wrong"!.
>
> ~Ram
>
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 12:15 PM, Bala Jeyaraman <sodabottle(a)gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> >
> > -* If Hisham and Nitika were clueless why didn't to step-up and asked
> > them about the expectations. One more thing when you are starting
> something
> > new don't expect people will start reaching you from the Day1, we need to
> > build a relationship and get their faith that "we are here to help you,
> and
> > it's going to be great learning experience". Tell me how many times did
> you
> > reached out to students, even if you did and they didn't responded don't
> > loose the faith, they are new to this environment just help them to take
> > baby steps.
> >
> > *I remember doing this exactly on Oct 12 office hours. Here is the
> > transcript snippet which srikanth has provided in the earlier mail. Again
> > you are demonstrating your ignorance about what an OA role is.
> >
> >
> > Oct 12 15:34:32 <srikanthlogic> but i was on IRC, got only one help req
> >> in a whole week, my talk page was untouched. I am ready to help if
> >> people reach out :)
> >> Oct 12 15:35:33 <Hmundol> srikanthlogic & soda bottle : yes, i know
> that
> >> more students ought to be reaching out but sometimes they don't even
> know
> >> the mistake they are committing so don't reach out. ?what the Campus
> >> Ambassadors have been doing i s proactively going to contrib histories
> and
> >> checking in. ?unfortunately, that seems to the only way that it's
> worked.
> >
> >
> > *.*
> > - *First of all I didn't like the way you put this statement, if helping
> > someone by teaching them the right way is some kind of low grade job for
> > you, then I can surely say you are a misfit here! Just imagine you are
> > trying teach a kid to write, they will definitely mess it up by drawing
> > mangoes and bananas, and when you clear the slate you don't call it
> > janatorship, coz you know what you are doing, and having faith that the
> kid
> > will learn by doing mistakes eventually.
> >
> > *
> > This is exactly the kind of cluelessness i am referring to. The
> > [[WP:COMPETENCE]] exists exactly for this purpose - we dont want "kids",
> > who will "mess up" by "drawing mangoes and bananas" here. We want atleast
> > semi competent, interested people who can act responsibly.
> >
> > But then, i should expect this general cluelessness and ignorance from a
> > "campus ambassador" with a grand total of 41 mainspace edits?.
> >
> > This sums up the problem of the IEP - designed by people clueless about
> > how en wiki works and run by "campus ambassadors" who view wikipedia as a
> > giant sandbox to play with students.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Ashwin Baindur <
> ashwin.baindur(a)gmail.com
> > > wrote:
> >
> >> We have had a lot of responses and recriminations on this issue. In the
> >> light of all that has happened, please let us stop our grousing. Hisham
> has
> >> opened a new thread, and accepted full responsibility. That is the end
> of
> >> the blame-game as far as anybody is concerned. All of us are inviolved
> and
> >> all of us are both innocent and blameworthy, including and especially
> me. I
> >> know I should have done more.
> >>
> >> Let us bring this thread to a close. Let all posts now be in response to
> >> his new thread only and couched in positive terms and offering useful
> >> suggestions or fresh input.
> >>
> >>
> >> Warm regards,
> >>
> >> Ashwin Baindur
> >> ------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>
> >> On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 11:39 AM, Ram Shankar Yadav <
> >> ramshankaryadav(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi Bala,
> >>>
> >>> *"Oh yeah. Do everything wrong and then blame the OA. Hisham, Nitika
> >>> and apparently you are clueless what an OAs role is. I had no clue
> the OA
> >>> role involved going through every edit and do the student's work. IEPs
> >>> mails did not specify that the expectation about OA role was doing the
> >>> student's homework. If you had made this clear, i would have never
> signed
> >>> up."*
> >>>
> >>> - We are not putting blame on anyone. If Hisham and Nitika were
> clueless
> >>> why didn't to step-up and asked them about the expectations. One more
> thing
> >>> when you are starting something new don't expect people will start
> reaching
> >>> you from the Day1, we need to build a relationship and get their faith
> that
> >>> "we are here to help you, and it's going to be great learning
> experience".
> >>> Tell me how many times did you reached out to students, even if you
> did and
> >>> they didn't responded don't loose the faith, they are new to this
> >>> environment just help them to take baby steps.
> >>>
> >>> *It imagined them to be janitors who would cleanup after the students.
> >>> (Dont believe me?, ask the other Indian guy who was an OA in both
> programs
> >>> - MikeLynch).*
> >>> - First of all I didn't like the way you put this statement, if helping
> >>> someone by teaching them the right way is some kind of low grade job
> for
> >>> you, then I can surely say you are a misfit here! Just imagine you are
> >>> trying teach a kid to write, they will definitely mess it up by drawing
> >>> mangoes and bananas, and when you clear the slate you don't call it
> >>> janatorship, coz you know what you are doing, and having faith that
> the kid
> >>> will learn by doing mistakes eventually.
> >>>
> >>> *Another wrong fact. An Indian admin called spacemanspiff who tried to
> >>> point Hisham and group in the right direction in early september when
> >>> things started to go wrong (it was in the talk page of Moonriddengirl,
> >>> where fluffernutter went to help with copyvios). He even designed a
> helpful
> >>> Q&A page which Hisham did not use. Disgusted with the IEP attitude,
> Spiff
> >>> quit trying to help. The whole issue could have been stopped right
> then and
> >>> there if the warnings of multiple editors and admins had been heeded.*
> >>>
> >>> - Accept my apologies for not able to recall few Indian Admins who
> tired
> >>> to help us, but if you see the big picture, the whole scene was
> dominated
> >>> by editors from abroad. We needed your help and support when these
> folks
> >>> were pointing fingers on Indian Education System. One more thing,
> after the
> >>> first few instances of copyvios we reached out in person and took 35+
> >>> sessions in various classes but even after putting that effort few of
> them
> >>> kept doing the copy-paste for last minute submissions.
> >>>
> >>> *And why exactly do you need "Indian" community to help?. The newbie
> >>> editors were getting plenty of help from the global community.*
> >>> *- *By "Indian" community I mean people like you and me and others you
> >>> are either reading or replying this thread, guys we surely needed your
> >>> support at the forefront.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> We never denied the fact that we have failed in certain areas but that
> >>> doesn't mean that overall program is a failure or dead.
> >>>
> >>> We believe in learning from our mistakes and happy to do new ones to
> >>> learn better.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>> Ram
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 11:27 PM, Bala Jeyaraman <sodabottle(a)gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> >>*we never got the support which was required from an OA. Honestly
> >>>> speaking there was no interaction between OAs and CAs and without
> >>>> that coordination chances of success are quite low. *
> >>>> *My only point here is to all the OAs in this discussion is that if
> >>>> Hisham/Nitika has not set the expectations right, why didn't you
> approached
> >>>> them, then and there! Anybody can come and comment on this failure
> story
> >>>> but even you were a part of this sinking ship.*
> >>>>
> >>>> Oh yeah. Do everything wrong and then blame the OA. Hisham, Nitika and
> >>>> apparently you are clueless what an OAs role is. I had no clue the
> OA role
> >>>> involved going through every edit and do the student's work. IEPs
> mails
> >>>> did not specify that the expectation about OA role was doing the
> student's
> >>>> homework. If you had made this clear, i would have never signed up.
> >>>>
> >>>> So get this straight - IEP had no clue what Online Ambassador's did in
> >>>> the PPP. They just used the term in IEP and recruited a bunch of
> volunteer
> >>>> editors expecting them to cleanup after the students. This is not an
> issue
> >>>> of miscommunication, this is an issue of ignorance. The IEP didnt
> know what
> >>>> OAs do. It imagined them to be janitors who would cleanup after the
> >>>> students. (Dont believe me?, ask the other Indian guy who was an OA
> in
> >>>> both programs - MikeLynch).
> >>>>
> >>>> >>,* I can't recall a single instance when an Indian Administrator
> >>>> came forward and found a copyvio/poor editing, etc
> >>>>
> >>>> *
> >>>> Another wrong fact. An Indian admin called spacemanspiff who tried to
> >>>> point Hisham and group in the right direction in early september when
> >>>> things started to go wrong (it was in the talk page of Moonriddengirl,
> >>>> where fluffernutter went to help with copyvios). He even designed a
> helpful
> >>>> Q&A page which Hisham did not use. Disgusted with the IEP attitude,
> Spiff
> >>>> quit trying to help. The whole issue could have been stopped right
> then and
> >>>> there if the warnings of multiple editors and admins had been heeded.
> >>>>
> >>>> And why exactly do you need "Indian" community to help?. The newbie
> >>>> editors were getting plenty of help from the global community. You
> dont
> >>>> need a specific nationality editor to come and tell the students what
> to do
> >>>> and what not to do. A student who doesnt listen to "Do not copy
> paste"
> >>>> instruction coming from a American editor is not going to care if the
> >>>> instruction came from an Indian editor.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 10:42 PM, Ram Shankar Yadav <
> >>>> ramshankaryadav(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> +1 Srikanth!
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Hey Folks!
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I'm Ram and I'm one of the CA's worked closely with CoEP and SSE. I
> >>>>> would like to share my views on this most discussed topic, coz the
> term
> >>>>> "FAIL" is quite thought provoking, and now everyone has an opinion
> and I
> >>>>> respect that.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> As a Campus Ambassador(CA) we faced the heat on ground and nobody can
> >>>>> feel the pain like us when we heard the discontinuation of IEP in
> CoEP coz
> >>>>> we gave our personal time physically and virtually in every possible
> way to
> >>>>> make this program a success, and I promise we'll keep doing that.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> My views on IEP:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> 1. *Wikipedia India Education Program(IEP) for a CA* : The whole idea
> >>>>> of this program like everyone knows is to get more editors, but we
> have our
> >>>>> own set of challenges in the age of Facebook. What a bunch of CAs
> have done
> >>>>> in as short span of 5 months can't be done in a couple of months by
> >>>>> existing Community(local or global), coz we touched the
> students(1000+)
> >>>>> personally, we had the experience of interactions with Faculty and
> >>>>> Directors.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Our only aim was to tell them(students) that Wikipedia is "cool", and
> >>>>> indeed we did that! in the way we taught wikipedia to them. Few
> things
> >>>>> which we tell our students in our Wiki Sessions:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> - Writing on Wikipedia will give you global audience, 400 million
> >>>>> unique visitors
> >>>>> - It will improve your Writing, Critical Thinking
> >>>>> and Collaborative skills
> >>>>> - It will add a bullet point to your resume and hence better
> >>>>> placements
> >>>>> - Lastly it will also give you marks if you follow the given
> >>>>> deadlines
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Yes, I agree that we have seen setback coz of the copyvios, but I
> >>>>> totally agree with Srikanth coz this was due to the scale and
> numbers.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> 2. *Faculty Involvement* : It is one of the weak link in IEP, though
> >>>>> they knew the importance of this program, but they have their own
> set of
> >>>>> obligations/mindset, and we always felt that not all the faculty
> members
> >>>>> are tracking the students and their articles. We have some exemplary
> Profs
> >>>>> who are so much involved that they reached every student's talk page
> and
> >>>>> wrote message on it, and on the other side few never opened the
> course page
> >>>>> itself!
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Lesson for us is to enroll only those who are really interested and
> >>>>> track them as well, drop the course if they are not putting effort as
> >>>>> required, but this scenario was different 6 months back, coz no one
> knew
> >>>>> about this program, and yes we did enrolled a few inactive faculty
> coz they
> >>>>> showed interest but never lived up to the expectation.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> 3. *Online Ambassadors* : As Hisham already told that we got very
> >>>>> late engagement of our OAs in this program as well as the OA
> expectation
> >>>>> issue, we never got the support which was required from an OA.
> Honestly
> >>>>> speaking there was no interaction between OAs and CAs and without
> >>>>> that coordination chances of success are quite low.
> >>>>> My only point here is to all the OAs in this discussion is that if
> >>>>> Hisham/Nitika has not set the expectations right, why didn't you
> approached
> >>>>> them, then and there! Anybody can come and comment on this failure
> story
> >>>>> but even you were a part of this sinking ship.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> 4. *India Community* : We really missed you throughout this program,
> >>>>> I can't recall a single instance when an Indian Administrator came
> forward
> >>>>> and found a copyvio/poor editing, etc. We don't bifurcate among
> community
> >>>>> and we never taught our students that only Indian community will
> help, our
> >>>>> aim was to make their "collaborative" skill better instead of
> creating a
> >>>>> division among the community.
> >>>>> For my fellow Indian Wiki Community, folks we would love to hear from
> >>>>> you and surely need your help and support in future.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> 5. *Global Community* : Firstly I would say "Thank you" to them for
> >>>>> teaching the harsh lessons but we really liked the way you guys
> supported
> >>>>> us. Yes, I know few folks who always crib and do the mud throwing on
> this
> >>>>> program and it's implementation, but I know folks who have helped
> writing
> >>>>> great articles, reviewing them and event doing copy-editing and
> cleaning.
> >>>>> We need to surely communicate better with them in future.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> 6. *Campus Ambassadors*: The best thing that happen to me coz of IEP
> >>>>> is I found great friends who share the same philosophy of free
> knowledge.
> >>>>> We gave our personal time not only in taking session but also
> training new
> >>>>> bunch of CAs and helping students in every possible way.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> We were the face of Wikipedia on campus and we love it!
> >>>>> Like Srikanth said yes we were overloaded coz of the number of
> >>>>> students per CA was very large still we did our bit to help every
> students
> >>>>> by either reaching out personally and virtually.
> >>>>> One point to note here that out of 40 selected CAs(Gen 1 & 2) only 30
> >>>>> are active and out of those 30 only 20 track/follow and reach out
> students,
> >>>>> so in short we need more involvements for the dormant CAs.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> 7. *Students* : We found good and bad students, student I know has
> >>>>> written a GA and I also know a student who in-spite of several
> warnings by
> >>>>> phone/mail and personal visits they kept copy-paste! Between the two
> >>>>> extremes there are folks who failed few times but did learned from
> it and
> >>>>> had become great editors.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> All in all the learning here is to, assess the level of students
> based
> >>>>> on their skill(writing especially) and their educational
> background(rural
> >>>>> or urban). Also we need to teach them the most important thing, NOT
> TO COPY
> >>>>> PASTE!!!, from the very first day of the wiki sessions.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> *Summary*: We are challenging the status quo by bringing a new way of
> >>>>> learning and teaching things and have learned some essential lessons
> for
> >>>>> making this program a success in future. I would personally request
> my
> >>>>> fellow Wikipedians to keep a faith on us and support us in every
> possible
> >>>>> way coz *"helping hands are better than praying lips"*.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Let's make this world a better place!
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Cheers,
> >>>>> Ram
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 9:00 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan <
> >>>>> srik.lak(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 20:15, Theo10011 <de10011(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Nitika <ntandon(a)wikimedia.org
> >wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> I would also like to share with you all some of the good articles
> >>>>>>>> that students have written.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> Nitika, please use right terms from next time, "Good articles" mean
> >>>>>> entirely different thing in Wikipedia. http://enwp.org/WP:GA
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Robinson Crusoe Economy<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe_Economy>
> >>>>>>> -Another redirect, 'economy' is in
> lower-case.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Theo,
> >>>>>> You got it wrong on that alone to best of my knowledge, probably you
> >>>>>> did it too fast. Its probably the lone GA which got churned out of
> the
> >>>>>> program and we could call it a lone success among several other
> things.
> >>>>>> Wish that editor continues wiki editing.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> Regards
> >>>>>> Srikanth.L
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> >>>>>> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >>>>>> To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
> >>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> >>>>> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >>>>> To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
> >>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> >>>> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >>>> To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
> >>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> >>> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >>> To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
> >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> >> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >> To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> > Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> >
> >
>
Another strategy that we can adopt while doing this program in India is,
about the selection of articles for editing. We can ask students to
contribute to articles that they are interested in, rather than of all of
them editing the articles on the same topic.
The reason I am telling this is, In India (in general) it is not the
students who are deciding the course (and career) that they want to
study/pursue. Parents, relatives, and community around them decide that. So
even though the student's interest may lie in a specific area, he might be
studying a different course.
Allowing students to edit in a topic that they like will bring in more
original content. But the issue with this methodology is, the role of
Professors might be reduced, and the role of CA and OA might be increased.
And I am not sure how the
But this methodology is adopted very successfully in Kerala using School
wiki <http://schoolwiki.in>. But we may say, that is school children and
they are not mature enough for wikipedia editing. Again that is our
misconception. In general, personally I am more interested to target school
students (high school and Plus 2) than college students. School children
are fantastic. It is true that most of us under estimate them. But to see
the successful result from India, see the young and wonderful wikipedians
we have in Malayalam wikipedia and wikisource.
*Note: *Please note that I am replying to this thread as a Malayalam wiki
community memeber.
Shiju
On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 12:07 AM, Swaroop Rao <raul.swaroop(a)gmail.com>wrote:
> That's true Arjun, there is a lot of interest in this program in many
> colleges, and this is going untapped. No, its not dead for sure. It was a
> pilot, and it didn't come out pretty; no issues, that's how we learn. I
> think that one thing we learnt is that the US model may not work out well
> for India, so we need to develop an India specific model for this (That's
> what we've been trying to do in these previous mails actually I guess).
>
> Swaroop Rao
> (MikeLynch <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MikeLynch>)
>
>
> Steering Committee member, United States Education Program
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 23:36, Arjun mangol <arjun.mangol(a)gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hey all,
>>
>> I refuse to believe it dead as of yet. There's yet a lot of avenues that
>> haven't been explored. My personal suggestion was that let IEP establish a
>> Wikipedia Club in every college in Pune to begin with, that would inculcate
>> new, interested members who have a genuine passion for the project. Such
>> clubs could meet every second Sunday, hold guest lecs, set a quota for a
>> certain no. of articles to be created by the Pune chapter and so on by the
>> members, teach its members better editing skills, and spread the knowledge.
>> The CA training prog that I attended was a hell lotta fun and I wish many
>> of my friends get the feel of it too.
>>
>> These clubs would be managed by all the 'veteran' CAs and newer ones if
>> needed as and when. IEP would be the umbrella organisation to it all, and
>> we can focus a lot more on quality of articles rather than the sheer no. of
>> editors and rampant copyvio-ing done as a consequence by the newbies. Give
>> it thought. My friends in many colleges throughout India were literally
>> jealous that I was a part of it. Let's not let it go unnoticed that there
>> is genuine interest spread in pockets throughout the country.
>>
>> - Arjun
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 11:18 PM, Arnav Sonara <sonara.arnav(a)gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> hi,
>>>>
>>>> It was a pilot and hence I guess was meant to die at some point.
>>>>
>>>> First up, to the Campus Ambassadors, you guys showed a lot of courage
>>>> in taking up and then following through on your commitment of being Campus
>>>> Ambassadors through the length of this Pilot. I hope the team will also
>>>> speak to the Ambassadors whilst doing the post-mortem so future programs
>>>> have the benefit of their "experience". The same also goes to the India
>>>> Programs team that initiated this project.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks to all of you, yes this was a Pilot, but at no point I see it
>>> dying. Its just that we have taken a pause right now to learn from the
>>> findings and ll come back all prepared and with the help of you all we ll
>>> try to gain new heights again.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Thanks
>>> Arnav (ricku).
>>> (User:Rangilo_Gujarati)<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rangilo_Gujarati>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>>> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> - Arjun
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>
>
Hi all,
I'm really looking forward to Wikiconference India next week and congrats
in advance to the organizers, who have put countless hours into the work of
preparing this unprecedented gathering in India. The program committee
invited me to do a talk on Sunday which is a great honor, thank you!
I'd like to ask for your input on areas you would like me to focus on in my
talk. I will have time set aside for discussion, but want to see if you
have any particular interest areas that you'd like me to focus on.
Thanks and see you on Friday!
Barry
--
Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hi Folks,
I'm writing to share an update with you on certain developments of relevance to the Wikimedia movement in India.
Announcement of Wikimedia India Program Trust
For some time, efforts have gone into creating an organization that would provide an appropriate structure to support Wikimedia program activities in India. Aspects such as the current regulatory framework (regarding funding, taxation, etc.) as well as the legal protection for the India team have been considered to determine this structure. In this context, a host of options (e.g. subsidiary, branch, Section 25) were evaluated and a determination was made towards an independent non-profit public trust. Legal advice has been taken at every stage in this decision.
A new entity, the “Wikimedia India Program Trust”, has now been formed and registered (in Delhi.) This will be the organization that will eventually drive India programs and house the team in India.
Why an Independent Public Trust?
The Trust will provide an effective vehicle within India to marshal resources to support programs and partner with local institutions. The objective of the Trust is to promote the objectives of the Wikimedia movement and work closely with the Wikimedia community on various projects with an India focus. It is important to understand that the Trust will not have any editorial control over content on any of the Wikimedia projects. The Trust is a not for profit organization.
Introduction of Trustees
Trustees have been identified based upon their support for Wikimedia movement's principles and plans in addition to having reputations for good governance and management.
Sunil Abraham and Rahul Matthan have been requested to be the initial Trustees. Both are friends of Wikipedia and have extensive experience.
Sunil is Executive Director of the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), is a long term advocate of free software and IP reform and has been supporting the Wikimedia community and movement for some time now.
Rahul is a partner and heads the technology practice at Trilegal. He brings deep expertise and relationships that will be valuable for the Trust.
These initial Trustees will serve for a term of three years at the maximum. All additional or subsequent Trustees will serve on rotation in accordance with a trustee selection plan that will be prepared.
Trustees will not be compensated for their services.
Governance, Funding, Financial Standards & Communications of the Trust
The Trust will be governed by Trustees who will provide oversight and guidance regarding the operations and governance of the Trust.
Since the Trust is an independent organization, it will require funding for its operations which is in compliance with the legal and regulatory framework in India. It will seek funding from private donors within India as well as external sources.
The Trust has the support of the Wikimedia Foundation which is a United States based non-profit foundation. However, in India all non-profit organizations need to be in existence for 3 years before they can receive funding from sources outside India. In the interim, they can apply for prior-permission under the FCRA regulations to help expedite the process. As a result, the Trust will shortly be applying for approval to receive funds from the Wikimedia Foundation in the future.
As a Trust, we are required to have an independent external auditor. We have appointed KPMG. KPMG is experienced in auditing non-profit companies and are also auditors for the Wikimedia Foundation.
Annually, the Trust will publicly disclose it's independently audited financial statements.
The Trust will publish a monthly newsletter outlining its current activities and future plans. This will commence in December 2011.
Operations of the Trust
The trust deed under which the Trust must operate clearly states that the purpose of the Trust is to independently promote the growth of volunteer activities within India in support of effective and unrestricted dissemination of free knowledge to the public.
I will serve as the Executive Director of the Trust. Once it is possible, additional employees will be brought on to the Trust
The Trust will eventually have an office in Delhi.
In the interim, I have personally secured temporary office space to facilitate establishing the Trust and its mission. It is located at Top Floor, G-15, Hauz Khas, New Delhi - 110 016. It's a couple of minutes walk away from IIT Flyover and Hauz Khas Metro. Do drop in! It's a small but cozy place and we'd love to have you over!
Conclusion
We continue to make progress in setting up program activities to support the growth of Wikimedia in India. We have a long way to go, but are glad that we are starting to build a solid foundation.
The following link is for FAQs on this (and related) topics: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FAQ_India_Programs/FAQ_Wikimedia_India_Progr…
As always, do reach out if you have any comments or questions.
Warm Regards,
hisham
*The National / UAE : " Eager to preserve language, Indians from Kerala
embrace Wikipedia"*
http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/south-asia/eager-to-preserve-langu…
* Eager to preserve their language, Keralites have eagerly responded to
Wikipedia's request for submissions in their native language Malayalam.*
*
*
*The campaign to expand Wikipedia offerings in Indian languages is aimed at
boosting the website's exposure in India, which, when compared to the rest
of the world, remains relatively small.*
*
*
*Of the scores of regional languages in India, Nepali and Hindi speakers
have posted the most articles on Wikipedia in these languages. But an
active online community of expatriate Keralites has made Malayalam the
fastest growing regional language version of Wikipedia.*
*
*
*Keralites are proud of their language and culture. That devotion is driven
partly by the Indian government's efforts to promote Hindi, a North Indian
language, as the lingua franca of India.*
*
*
*In December last year, there were 90 active editors for the
Malayalam-language website. There are now 564. Many joined when Wikipedia
launched a campaign dubbed, "Malayalam loves Wikipedia" that solicited
articles and photos from Keralites.*
*
*
*Wikipedia hopes the campaign could become a model to garner similar
responses from other regional language speakers in India.*
*
*
*Many of these new editors for the Malayalam Wikimedia site came from Gulf
countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. More than 15 per cent
of all photo and text contributions came from Keralites based in the Gulf,
such as Simy Nazarath, a software sales manager in Dubai. "You do it so
that the language does not die," he said.*
*
*
*Wikipedia is the fifth most visited site in the world, where content is
generated by 90,000 readers from across the world. Despite the global
popularity of Wikipedia, the site remains relatively unknown in India.
Every month, 400 million people visit the site, but only 14 million are
from India.*
*
*
*
*
*"The potential in India is enormous," said Hisham Mundol, a consultant for
Wikimedia Foundation's India programmes. The Wikimedia Foundation is a
non-profit organisation that pays to operate Wikipedia.*
*
*
*Despite India's potential, getting Indians to read or write articles in
their native language is difficult. "It is a case of the chicken or the
egg," said Mr Mundol. "People don't write because there are not enough
readers but people don't read because they think pages in their regional
language don't exist."*
*
*
*But Malayalam Wikipedia is bucking the trend. It is the most rapidly
growing regional language site in India. That is driven partly by the fact
that Kerala has the highest literacy rate in the country — 93.9 per cent,
according to the 2011 Census of India. English is the language of
instruction in most private schools, while the government school courses
are taught primarily in Malayalam.*
*
*
*Mr Nazarath finds the process of creating articles deeply rewarding. "It
is quite fulfilling because if you look at it, not even the best of
encyclopedias in the Malayalam language available in India has this many
articles."*
*
*
*The Kerala government spent the last 20 years working on an encyclopaedia
in Malayalam, but has managed to produce only 3,300 articles. In contrast,
Malayalam Wikipedia now has more than 20,000. The state government has
eagerly embraced the efforts of the Wikipedians, opening its archives to
the website's amateur historians.*
*
*
*Mr Nazarath is one of the longest serving editors of Malayalam Wikipedia.
He has written more than 400 articles since he began in 2006.*
*
*
*Mr Nazarath's areas of interest is Indian and Keralite history, especially
medieval and ancient history. He both translates from English pages and
writes new entries from references in Malayalam history books.*
*
*
*Now, Wikimedia is trying to engage India's elderly to preserve mythology
or artists to write about folklore or interest groups to contribute more
about fabric and craft techniques. "The opportunities are huge, but the
question is how do we identify which ones to pursue," said Mr Mundol.*
*
*
*Mr Mundol said that the success of Malayalam Wikipedia could prove to be a
benchmark for future efforts by the Wikimedia Foundation in India.*
*
*
*"With the Malayalam projects, the emphasis was on community building, on
getting new editors."*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
*Important Note *: The publisher ( The National ) 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.
Hi Folks
I'm deliberately opening a new mail chain on this. This is at the risk of me being told off for doing so - but I believe that email protocol is one thing - but communication philosophy is (arguably) even more critical.
I (and personally upsetting to me, others at India Programs - namely Nitika & the Campus Ambassadors) have taken some beating over the past few days. Some has been personal and not been circumspect or constructive; not pretty. I have been touched by the offlist messages of comfort and support that I and the others have got.
I am exceedingly worried about the impact it has had on team morale. To all those who have criticised the India Education Program, spare a thought for the volunteers who have helped out on this. I want to tell the Campus Ambassadors to be strong and keep your chins up. You guys have been incredible. Hand on heart, you have given your hearts and souls and have conducted probably the single biggest Wikipedia outreach program in the world. (btw, I really don't care if someone wants to tag this as {citation required.}) You have taken time out of your working lives and college days. I know how tough it's been - conducting more than 100 in-class sessions, working with so many students and faculty, reaching out on email and talk pages and SMS and mobile calls and social networks and in canteens, poring over student entries, learning Wikipedia policies, figuring out new tools to help your work, building relationships with other editors across the globe, doing the back-breaking documentation that's been required on project & course pages, and I can go on and on and on. I know that sustaining this level of motivation and energy over months has been hard on you. I also know some of you faltered. I know some of you wanted to scream and kick someone some times, maybe even many people many times! Keep the faith, guys.
I am sorry for the personal attack on Nitika. To her, I want to publicly apologise. I know her to be hard-working, diligent, honest, competent and an all-round professional. She's new and she's learning and has and will make mistakes - like all of us do. It is fantastic to have her on the team. Period.
The program is a pilot - and we made a ton of mistakes. Sorry, let me rephrase that. I led the initiative so all responsibility should be mine. I made a ton of mistakes. I promise the following. We will have a thorough, honest and fact based evaluation. We will be open to make all the changes that are required. We will not let the events of the past few days force us into a bunker mentality. We will be open and we will be intellectually rigorous. We will learn and we will improve. The India opportunity is massive - and our ambitions are huge. It is also fraught with challenges. Unless we try and do things - new and tough and complex things - we will never be able to realise our true potential.
I know that some who have participated in these exchanges are driven by an awe-inspiring love and passion for Wikipedia. I urge you to continue to come forward and work with others and us. Come forward early though - and stay engaged through the journey. It will have ups and downs.
On communication, I urge everyone to maintain WP:CIVILITY and WP:NPOV in all our interactions. On this - and to be fair - quite a few other interactions recently on totally unrelated topics (and involving a whole host of others), I daresay we have drifted from core Wikipedia principles. These should apply to us to all our community's interactions as religiously as we apply them to our projects.
I would urge folks who agree with me to write back. Even a +1 will do. Let's hear the voices of the quieter folks. Let's hear from the folks who don't always get involved in mailing list exchanges out of either apprehension or apathy. Let's move forward.
Warm Regards,
hisham
Hi,
For those who haven't noticed yet, " WikiProject India" on English
Wikipedia is featured on the latest Signpost and also interviews two active
contributors RegentsPark and Ashlin ( Ashwin) .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-11-14/WikiPr…
Started in July 2006 by Userr:Ganeshk, " WikiProject India" was one of the
most active WikiProjects on English Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:INDIA
All Wikipedians on English Wikipedia, with interest in India related
content, are welcome to join and collaborate with the project.
Regards
Tinu Cherian
has two articles on India:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wikipedia Signpost <wikipediasignpost(a)gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:18 AM
Subject: [Wikimedia Announcements] The Signpost -- Volume 7, Issue 46 -- 14
November 2011
To: wikimediaannounce-l <WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
In the news: Fundraising vs ads redux, WikiConference India nigh, a world
lit up with articles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-11-14/In_the…
WikiProject report: Having a Conference with WikiProject India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-11-14/WikiPr…