Microsoft's translation tool Wikibasha creates a code snippet like this -
<!-- WikiBhasha v=1 time=2011-2-6:11:20:20:309--> at the bottom of the
article everytime it is used to edit wikipedia pages. I found this out when
the MS representative made sample edits to Tamil wikipedia. He claims that
they need this to track the edits made using wikibasha.
I believe this practice is highly disruptive because, adding such a
signature to the bottom of the article is
a)tantamount to claiming that the entire article is the work of wikibasha
b) If we allow this practice, then all automated tools will start adding
their code snippets, bloating the page with useless code signatures.
wikipedians who took part in yesterday's carte blanche wiki workshop at
chennai have conveyed this to the representative and have recommended using
the tag in edit summaries instead. But i have no idea if Microsoft will
actually listen to us.
I thought i would inform the wider indic wiki communities regarding this. If
wikibasha is used in your respective wiki's and keeps adding this signature,
please urge the wikibasha developers to stop this practice.
regards
Bala
On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 11:43 AM, Anoop <anoop.ind(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Almost similar issue with Tulu language also.
>
> http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/tcy
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 11:37 AM, Bala Jeyaraman <sodabottle(a)gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> which script is being used now? devanagari or kannada?
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 11:35 AM, CherianTinu Abraham <
>> tinucherian(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The Hindu : Konkani Wikipedia bogged down by multiple scripts
>>>
>>> http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/article114158…
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Tinu Cherian
>>> http://wikimedia.in/wiki/In_the_news
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>>> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Beauty lies in the eyes of the beer holder
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> With Regards,
> Anoop P
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>
>
--
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beer holder
<p>Tinu,</p>
<p>I'm traveling and hence can't respond until tomorrow. I'm sure other EC members would respond by that time.</p>
<p>- Sundar</p>
<p>Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android</p>
Dear all,
Following the registration of the Wikimedia Chapter, the first meeting of the
Executive Committee (EC) was held on the 22nd January 2011 at 2 PM at 194, 2nd C
Cross, Domlur 2nd Phase, Bangalore 560071.
As mandated by the MoA, the office bearers were elected. The executive committee
now constitutes of:
* Arjuna Rao Chavala, President
* Hari Prasad HS, Secretary
* Anirudh Singh Bhati, Treasurer
* Arun Ramarathnam, Member
* BalaSundaraRaman Lakshmanan, Member
* Gautam K John, Member
* Srinivas Gunta, Member
We would like to take the opportunity to thank the Centre for Internet and
Society, Bangalore for allowing generous use of their office facility for the
conduct of chapter meetings and helping with registration formalities with
services of a Consultant.
We take this opportunity to thank the following people: (in alphabetical order)
Achal Prabhala, Barry Newstead, Bence Damokos, Bishakha Datta, Delphine Meynard,
M Narasimha Rao, Ray Saintonge, Sunil Abraham, and Ting Chen.
We thank the Wikimedia Community for their help and encouragement and patience
with the registration process.
For brief biographies and photos of the EC members, please see:Wikimedia India
Chapter Executive Committee Members
On behalf of Wikimedia Chapter
BalaSundaraRaman Lakshmanan,
Member, Wikimedia Chapter
"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
hi,
The next meetup of Mumbai Wikipedians is on February 13, 2011 at 4:00 pm
tentatively scheduled to be held at VJTI, Matunga. We have decided to create
a page so that you have time to spread the word. Requesting people who are
attending to sign up here -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Mumbai/Mumbai7.
I have called the event as Meetup 7 although the last such numbered meetup
was 5. This is because the meetup 6 was Wikipedia Day 2011 meeting. Have
commented accordingly. Hope someone more experienced at such page creations
can have a look through to see if I did anything wrong :).
Feel free to discuss/edit before the meeting any concerns you may have. Liam
Wyatt is coming to Mumbai during this meeting and hence this meeting is
expected to largely focussed on Gallery, Library, Archives and Museums
(GLAM) issues.
warm regards,
Pradeep Mohandas
Hi,
Yesterday I was asked some tricky questions by a journo. They were
something like this :
*" Does the surge of number of Indian language Wikipedia articles has
anything to do with paid translations by Google ?"*
*
*
*"Why should regular Wikipedians be motivated to contribute when Google pays
to do the same ?"*
I didn't answer them due to the sensitivity of the issue. But I am now
curious on a statistical point of view.
I am not referring to the philosophical question on whether paid editing is
good or bad.
But is there a way to find how many of the articles created in last year
were created by normal editors/bots and Google translators in each of the
Indian language Wikipedias? Somebody told me , the translators are supposed
to leave the translate URLs of Google in the edit summaries to get paid?
Which are the languages on which Google translations are happening ? I know
it happens on Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu, at least. Any other ? I
know it is banned to Bengali & Malayalam.
Regards
Tinu Cherian
There is a Wikipedia specific session at stall #196 (Akruti stall) on Sunday
Feb 6 at 2 p.m. All the volunteers who expressed interest - please make
yourself available for the session which might run into the evening.
The organizers were not able to allocate a separate stall for Wikipedia as
there was just too much demand from the publishers. However, we spent an
entire day with at the venue before the day of the event until late night
working with the organizers in an attempt to get a stall for Wikipedia.
There were publishers who had brought their books all the way from places
like Mangalore, Bidar that didn't get stalls either!
We're hence sharing a stall with a publisher friend, Guruprasad D N of
Akruti books who's been gracious to allow us to use the space. Pamphlets
about Kannada Wikipedia have been distributed for last two days from the
Akruti stall.
The National college ground has been way too crowded last couple of days
that it is difficult to even get to stand anywhere. Tomorrow would be the
most crowded of all the three days.
On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 9:17 PM, Sri harsha <reach.sriharsha(a)gmail.com>wrote:
> Guys,
>
> I am available on on Saturday and Sunday. I cannot make it Friday. Are we
> meeting before the event to discuss things?
> One clarification needed in previous mail some discussion going on about
> the job description and programming knowledge can you guys provide more
> details about it?
>
> 2011/1/25 Arun Ramarathnam <arunram25(a)gmail.com>
>
> > Ralph,
> >
> > This is indeed a great opportunity to create greater awareness about the
> > Kannada wikipedia. We need a lot more contributors to Kannada wikipedia.
> > Exhibitions are hectic but p;pose the best outreach opportunity.
> >
> > I though of sharing some learnings from the recent exhibit stall we had
> at
> > the World Sanskrit Book fair for you and the other volunteers to
> consider:
> >
> >
> > - These exhibitions tend to draw lot of crowds and can be very
> > exhausting.
> > - There needs to be 4 volunteers at a given time in the stall.
> > - Volunteers need to be in shifts of 2 hours to be effective and
> retain
> > energy reserves.
> > - Most of the questions in event like these are general awareness,
> what
> > they can do as readers, how they need to do if they need to contribute
> (whom
> > to contact). Discussions will not be very technical. (except in the
> cases of
> > very few visitors)
> > - Having pamphlets is a a great help with the links to wikimedia.in,
> > kannada wikipedia and other projects, India meetup page. We struggled
> > writing the links through the 2 days as we did not have any pamphlets.
> > - We now have the banners from the W10 event in Bangalore. These will
> > be of great use.
> > - Take the wikireader, it generates a lot of interest. It is now with
> > HPN.
> > - Suggest 3-4 laptops with a data card each. This is better than
> using
> > a single projector. We did not use a projector. One to one discussions
> are
> > most effective.
> > - Take a a few notebooks to write down contacts of people who want
> help
> > to become contributors.
> > - You will also run into people who would want to give away content
> > they have created to wikipedia. This is as always a great
> opportunity.
> > - From our past experience, the volunteers knowing wikipedia (even
> > using is good). Key messages to communicate can be shared with the
> team. The
> > general public is not very well informed on specifics of wikipedia
> except
> > being aware. Many may not know about it in Indian languages.
> > - The volunteers need the ability to communicate and relate to the
> > varied audience and backgrounds. This is the most important skill than
> even
> > being insightful.
> > - Have at least one senior wikipedian in the stall to answer the
> > difficult or detailed questions.
> > - Overlap some volunteers across days to carry the learning and
> > experience of earlier days across subsequent days.
> > - Expect people to ask questions about Kanaja and other similar
> > projects. They may also have stalls.
> >
> > Best wishes for the event.
> >
> > regards
> > Arun
> >
> > Bangalore, India
> > www.twitter.com/arunram
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Ralph <work.well.done.in(a)gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article1096315.ece
> >>
> >> In order to move forward, may I suggest the following:
> >>
> >> Job description of volunteer: other prerequisites - please list
> >> 1. Speak Kannada Yes (mandatory)/No (not required)
> >> 2. Programming knowledge Yes (mandatory)/No (not required)
> >> 3.
> >> 4.
> >>
> >> 1. List of names/email of volunteers who will be present at the Kannada
> >> Wikipedia booth on
> >> a. 4 Fri
> >> b. 5 Sat
> >> c. 6 Sun
> >>
> >> 2. Location map of venue/hall/room - exact details to prevent frantic
> >> searching for the right place.
> >>
> >> 3. Bus from Shivajinagar/Majestic/...
> >>
> >> 4. Coordinator name & mobile 9.........
> >>
> >> 5. Please bring (your own) snack/lunch, booth will be working without a
> >> break! Cannot afford to lose a single visitor.
> >>
> >> 6. Script: What should/should not be said. It may be impossible to meet
> >> before the event for the orientation but a virtual classroom will
> address
> >> that need.
> >>
> >>
> http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/453323-let-s-learn-to-use-wiziq-virtual-c…
> >>
> >> Await your comments. Thanks. Ralph
> >>
> >
>
--
Hari Prasad Nadig
http://hpnadig.net | http://twitter.com/hpnadighttp://flickr.com/hpnadig
Hi all,
We just had a demo of an interesting SMS application called txtweb
<http://www.txtweb.com/>. It is a beta platform that allows content
developers to publish their content using an apps model. It was
developed by some engineers at Intuit as a side project a few months back.
They have developed an app for English Wikipedia that has been rolled
out in India. The whole platform is India only for now.
How it works:
Type: @wikipedia<space><article name> e.g., @wikipedia mumbai gets you
the Mumbai article.
Send the SMS to 92433-42000
Links have a letter associated with it e.g., (B)Maharashtra. If you
reply (B) it will send you that article.
It would be great if folks tried out the service and provided feedback
to us (and we'll pass it on). I've set up a page on Strategy Wiki for
people to add comments: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Txtweb_feedback
I'm particularly interested in how folks use such a service and whether
the limited length of the message delivers a decent user experience.
Also, how would you improve the UI.
Feel free to pass this on to other lists or groups.
Best,
Barry
--
Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel: +1-415-839-6885 x. 6634
Skype: barry.wikimedia
Twitter: @bazanews