Dear Wikimedians,
Today we have released first version of FAQ
for Hindi Wikipedia
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hindi_Wiki_Projects_FAQ_Version_1.0.…>.With
a nice effort of malayalam wiki community they translated their FAQ from
malayalam to english.That translation helped us a lot for preparing FAQ for
Hindi Wikipedia.Special thanks to Shiju Alex and Junad pv who gave this FAQ
its Final pdf form.
Thank you and Regards
Mayur
I am happy to share a tiny web application to help people get started with
using Indian languages on Computers in public places, using wiki sites.
Check it out
http://gyanpad.appspot.com/
Cheers
Arjun
Hi all,
i just go through a interesting survey regarding Top Indic
wikipedians, This survey was carried out by Hindi wikipedians to measure
Activeness of all Indic Sysops.Generally we count no of edits but No of
sysop actions are also an interesting thing that how much a sysop is active
in his sysop activities.This parameter is also a good measure for any
wikiproject active community and controll over vandalism.Link for This
survey is as following-
http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%AA%….
We just tried to share an interesting stastics and I hope it will bring some
good creativity between Indic Sysops.
Thanks and Regards
Mayur
Dear Indic language wikipedians,
The logos of some of the Indic language wikipedias are updated recently.
Following are those wikipedias:
- Marathi - http://mr.wikipedia.org/
- Kannada - http://sa.wikipedia.org/
- Sanskrit - http://kn.wikipedia.org/
- Odia (Oriya) - http://or.wikipedia.org/
Among this, the Odia wikipedia logo is updated yesterday and is done by a
new wikipedian. Thanks to Subhashish who started editing in Odia wikipedia
recently. He had done a wonderful job.
The logos for the following language wikipedias still need to be updated.
- Assamese - http://as.wikipedia.org
- Bhojpuri - http://bh.wikipedia.org
- Bishnupriya Manipuri - http://bpy.wikipedia.org/
- Divehi - http://dv.wikipedia.org
- Gujarati - http://gu.wikipedia.org
- Hindi - http://hi.wikipedia.org
- Kashmiri - http://ks.wikipedia.org/
- Nepali - http://ne.wikipedia.org
- Pali - http://pi.wikipedia.org
- Punjabi - http://pa.wikipedia.org
- Sindhi - http://sd.wikipedia.org
- Tamil - http://ta.wikipedia.org
Hope the logos will be updated soon by the respective language community.
Kindly create a new logo, upload it to commons, and log a bug in bugzilla.
In case you require any assistance please contact me.
Shiju Alex
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline(a)gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 10:32 AM
Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Updating the logo of Indian Language Wikipedias
To: "Discussion list on Indian language projects of Wikimedia." <
wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Dear Indic language wikipedians,
As many of you know the default skin of wikipedias (including that of all
Indic language wikipedias) is moved to the new Vector skin some time back.
Please see the below mail that I sent to this list regrading this on *2010
July 1*.
As some of you know, along with this update, the logo of wikipedia is also
updated. The current logo is available
here<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia/2.0>.
But even though almost 6 months had passed after this major update, only
Bengali <http://bn.wikipedia.org>, Malayalam
<http://ml.wikipedia.org>, Urdu<http://ur.wikipedia.org>,
and Telugu <http://te.wikipedia.org> wiki communities had took initiatives
to update the logo. The logo update is still pending for the following
Indian language wikis.
- Assamese - http://as.wikipedia.org
- Bhojpuri - http://bh.wikipedia.org
- Bishnupriya Manipuri - http://bpy.wikipedia.org/
- Divehi - http://dv.wikipedia.org
- Gujarati - http://gu.wikipedia.org
- Hindi - http://hi.wikipedia.org
- Kannada - http://kn.wikipedia.org/
- Kashmiri - http://ks.wikipedia.org/
- Marathi - http://mr.wikipedia.org
- Nepali - http://ne.wikipedia.org
- Oriya - http://or.wikipedia.org
- Pali - http://pi.wikipedia.org
- Punjabi - http://pa.wikipedia.org
- Sanskrit - http://sa.wikipedia.org
- Sindhi - http://sd.wikipedia.org
- Tamil - http://ta.wikipedia.org
Carry Bass (User:Bastique <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bastique>)
has took initiative to create the new logo for some of the Indian language
wikis. But for languages like Kannada, Oriya, and so on even that is
pending. Even if the new logo is created a bug needs to be filed by the
respective wiki community to change the logo. So for most of the Indian
wikis both these tasks are pending now.
I request the respective language communities to take initiatives to create
the new logo and file a bug for this update. The guidelines for creating the
new logo is listed at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks/Word_mark_crea…
Please write to me if any of the language communities require any type of
support regarding this.
Regards
Shiju Alex
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 06:43:08 +0200
From: shijualexonline(a)gmail.com
To: wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Updating the default skin of Indian Language
Wikipedias
Hi All,
As some of you already know, *Usability Team<http://usability.wikimedia.org>
* is driving the task of updating the default skin of all WikiMedia
Foundation wikis to a skin called
*Vector*<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vector>.
English Wikipedia and some other big wikis have already moved to *Vector
skin* some time back. Apart from the UI, the logo of Wikipedia is also
updated <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/wikipedia-in-3d/>.
Yesterday (2010 June 30) at 10:30 PM IST, some other wikis (that have
carried out the formalities required for the UI change) are also moved to
the new UI. Among this, 3 Indian Language Wikipedias are also there.
Following are those Indian Language wikipedias:
- Malayalam - http://ml.wikipedia.org
- Bengali - http://bn.wikipedia.org
- Telugu - http://te.wikipedia.org
Please note the new default skin and the new logo that are appearing on
these wikis. (You may need to clear the cache to see the changes. )
Now to move your language wiki to Vector, you have to perform the following
two major operations:
1. Update the logo of your wiki
2. Localize the Vector skin system messages
Logo update
For some languages, logo is already updated. See the list here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia/2.0
If your wiki's logo is missing from this list, then you need to create the
new logo based on the instructions listed on this page.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks/About_the_offi…
Localizing the Vector skin System messages
For the current update, you need to localize the Vector skin system
messages. To localize the system messages, use Translate wiki -
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Main_Page
The current Localization statistics of Vector skin system messages is
available here. http://translatewiki.net/wiki/User:GerardM/usability-stats
You can see that many Indian languages (for example, Tamil) are missing from
this list. The reason is, none of the Vector skin system messages are
localized for those languages. Even for the big Languages like Hindi and
Marathi the percentage of localized messages is very low.
So I request the respective Indian Language Wikipedia communities to take
required initiative to switch over to the new Skin. Usability team is
planning for next set of switch over by the end of July. So you have
almost one month to finish these tasks.
Once you finish the above tasks you need to:
- Let the community know about this upcoming update (Use the village
pump, Site Notice, Mailing list, and so on)
- Appoint some volunteers to answer the questions related to this
- Appoint an ambassador to collect the feedback/issues/bugs and report it
to the Usability Team.
Please let me know in case you require any support regarding this.
Regards
Shiju Alex
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" The Sunday Indian" magazine on its recent cover story heavily bashes
Wikipedia, Google etc.
The article also features an interview with Jay Walsh, Wikimedia
Foundation’s Head of Communications.
*Some background : *
The publication is supported by Arindam Chaudhuri , Head of IIPM, who was
heavily criticized by bloggers for alleged misrepresentations and false
advertisements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Planning_and_Management_ad…
You can read more about the article here :
*The Sunday Indian : "Internet Hooliganism"*
http://www.thesundayindian.com/en/story/internet-hooliganism/15181/
( The article is very huge and hence only few relevant extracts copied here)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Planning_and_Management_ad…>
Why
internet vandals and slander supporting entities like Google must be
criminally prosecuted and made to pay for promoting defamatory links and
suggestions, and how the new IT act is a step in the right direction and
gives Indians the right to get justice against such vandalism.
...First, as I mentioned earlier, is the wicked anonymity that the web
provides to Internet posters, which gives them protection from being
identified and prosecuted. Second is the hand-in-hand conspiratorial
connivance of Internet companies like search engines, social networking
sites, blog site hosts and even ISPs (intermediaries, in summary) that
refuse to delete or block out the execrable comments and links and also
refuse to confirm the identities of the anon-posters. Google, Wikipedia,
Twitter... all of them fall within the same indecent category of companies.
Third has been the unfortunate legal protection given till now to such
intermediaries, who apparently could not be held responsible for material
that others were posting on their websites (for example, in the US, Section
230 of the Communications Decency Act has protected intermediaries from
liability for defamatory content posted on their sites, even if they allowed
the content to remain despite having been notified about the same).....
...But Google is only one side of the story. There are others in the same
league and perhaps as worse. One of the infamously notable ones is
Wikipedia, which touts itself as the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit
– a metaphor for allowing any anonymous author to post details about any and
every topic. And as the Wikipedia link almost always comes on the first page
of any search engine's results, the nuisance value Wikipedia and its army of
unidentifiable contributors command is immense and as dangerous.
Stories of even Wikipedia being taken to court are well known. Recent years
have seen temporary bans on Wiki pages from various governments, including
the Dutch and German ones. UK’s largest internet service provider banned
Wikipedia pages containing child pornography a few months ago. The
Australian government has blacklisted Wikipedia pages permanently along with
“child porn sites.” University of California professors refuse references to
Wikipedia. BusinessWeek has called Wikipedia “awash in controversy.” New
York Times, US government’s patents office and various other highly credible
entities have official policy documents against Wikipedia. US Senators like
Ted Stevens in Alaska have introduced bills to pull Wikipedia out of schools
and libraries. The US Appeals Court now has an official ruling against
Wikipedia sources being quoted.
On April 4, 2009, Financial Times certified Wikipedia as “hilariously
unreliable free-for-all.” USA Today’s founding editorial director John
Seigenthaler Sr went to the courts when his Wiki biography concocted up that
he was connected with the assassinations of both John F. Kennedy and his
brother Bobby Kennedy. While Wharton writers confess, “It's unclear how the
Wikipedia model will evolve...,” Harvard professors cast more caustic doubts
saying, “No, is the short answer here [to whether Wikipedia transfers to a
good corporate environment model].”
When San Francisco-based Jay Walsh, Wikimedia Foundation’s Head of
Communications, was questioned by TSI in May 2011 (read the full interview
later in this article) on the ongoing defamation of personalities on
Wikipedia, and on the concept of Internet hooliganism, he replied, “Our
project strongly supports free speech, but it also represents the power of
communities to remove vandalism, protect quality information, and generally
respect the importance of having high quality, non-vandalised information.
We're proud of that reputation.” In fact, as recently as on May 9, 2011,
UK-based billionaire Louis Bacon won a case in a London High Court, to force
three websites to reveal the identities of the bloggers who were posting
besmirching remarks online. One of these websites was Wikipedia (the two
other were WordPress and Denver Post). What entities like Wikipedia, Google,
Twitter et al are blatantly overlooking is the fact that freedom to express
should never be assumed to be freedom to defame. Citizen journalism is not
about promoting gossips, displaying profanities in words and making biased
mockery of humans and organizations. But easier said than done.........
.....” Even Barkha Dutt of NDTV sent blogger Chyetanya Kunte a legal notice
for posting his opinion (based on some excerpts from Wikipedia) that her
coverage of the 26/11 attacks might have endangered human lives. [Of course,
Kunte backed down after the reaction from Dutt]. ....
....And in this context, the rules notified on April 11, 2011, under the
Information Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011, by the
Government of India, deserves a loud applause. Something as good as this, is
a rare sight in the sector. What the notification clarifies is that, hereon,
it is not just bloggers with malicious intent, who will get dragged to the
table of interrogation. Even intermediaries like all search engines and
websites (which would include Google, Wikipedia, or even online payment &
auction sites, social networking sites and hosted blogs), Telecom and
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and even cyber cafes, will be held liable
for all harm caused to the party – individual or a body of individuals –
which has lodged a complaint. This war is not just a blogger versus an
innocent tale anymore. The intermediaries are neck-deep in too......
....Also, all Internet businesses in India (and if possible, around the
world) should be made answerable for their local operations, in accordance
with the law of the Indian land. Else, they should be blocked. This way, we
will not have a Wikipedia US operation evading legal notices because an
Indian court passed an order against it, or a Google India claiming
innocence because a Mumbai High Court passed an order. ....
*"We support free speech"*
Jay Walsh, Head of Communications, Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)
TSI: A lot has been debated over time that bloggers have received more than
enough headspace to defame personalities over the Internet in an unchecked
fashion. So does this call for ethical and strict government regulations and
soon (like was passed on privacy)?
Jay Walsh (JW): Wikimedia's projects are operated by thousands of volunteers
from all over the world. Although the projects (our servers) are housed in
the US, and we're ultimately required to abide by US laws around privacy,
our users in many countries will generally make their best efforts to adhere
to relevant privacy laws in the countries where they reside. In other words,
the users appreciate that the information they post on Wikipedia in their
own country should be done so within the scope of the laws of that country.
When there are issues with vandalism on Wikipedia, our community is able to
address the issues rapidly. Volunteers work hard to keep the information
high quality – and perhaps most importantly, for living people who are
represented by articles on Wikipedia, volunteers want to ensure that the
right information is there at all times. Vandalism on all articles, but
particularly on articles about living people, is not tolerated and is
rapidly removed. So, our system is working quite well, and our community
isn't seeking out better or tougher government regulations around personal
privacy.
TSI: How do you view the concept of Internet hooliganism, where bloggers
write anything about any person or institution – which are mostly hearsay
and wrong, and worse, defamatory. Should the law take strict actions against
such people?
JW: The Foundation doesn't have a specific point of view on this matter. Our
project strongly supports free speech, but it also represents the power of
communities to remove vandalism, protect quality information, and generally
respect the importance of having high quality, non-vandalised information.
We're proud of that reputation – it's about a massive, global effort to
present the best quality information on the web.
TSI: Wikipedia has been held up many time for allowing bloggers to generate
and display content that is defamatory. How does Wikipedia handle the vast
amount of defaming content?
JW: My previous answers speak to our overall and continuous efforts to
remove vandalism in articles. This is partly an automated process of
deleting edits that are clearly vandal-oriented (using swear words for
example), but largely the work of thousands of volunteers who constantly
assess and review new edits to Wikipedia and its sister projects. They
review edits one at a time, reverting vandalism and blocking users who seek
to contravene our basic policies.
TSI: Does Wikipedia feel legally responsible for such content?
JW: Wikipedia is about providing the highest quality, neutral information to
the visitors of Wikipedia. All Wikipedians share in the responsibility to
ensure the quality of content, and new users are welcome to take part in the
process.
TSI: How many court cases globally are currently pending against Wikipedia
where Wikipedia is cited as a defendant?
JW: Occasionally individuals reach out to the Wikimedia Foundation, the
official non-profit organisation that operates Wikipedia, to request action
on content. Sometimes this comes in the form of correspondence from lawyers.
There are far fewer situations where active litigation is necessary. I'm not
aware of any current legal cases.
TSI: What are the lawsuits that Wikipedia has lost globally?
JW: I'm not aware of any situations where the Foundation has not won a legal
situation.
TSI: Should there be a separate law governing blogs and other Internet
public display websites?
JW: That's a question best left to those who use or edit Wikipedia, but from
the Foundation's perspective we believe that our project works well within
the pre-existing laws in the US to protect information relating to living
people. We are more concerned with seeing better laws developed
internationally to protect free speech on line, and to ensure that every
person on the planet can participate freely in the creation and sharing of
all human knowledge.
While this may sound bad, it really isn't all that bad.
There are plenty of other transliterators. I personally prefer Bing to
Google. You also have Quillpad and Baraha. Apart from this, I use a tool
called Keymmanweb on the English wikipedia which works as an on screen indic
keypad. There are plenty of alternatives to Google. Just as we don't use
Google Maps for locations, but use all providers including OSM, we can try
something new this time.
Regards,
Rsrikanth05
On May 27, 2011 11:35 PM, "Sudhanwa Jogalekar" <sudhanwa.com(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Google shutting down translate and transliterate APIS.
Many Indic websites & applications will now be affected
Read more here:
http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/05/spring-cleaning-for-some-of-our-apis…
Looks like this is the right time for WMF tech team to create their own APIs
--Sudhanwa
~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!
web: www.sudhanwa.com blog: www.sudhanwa.in
Twitter: sudhanwa Check on FB, Linkedin for more.
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Hello friends,
There is a lot happening in Pune next week. We have a lot of visitors in
town who would especially like to interact with the Pune Community. Our help
and cooperation has been sought for the Campus Ambassador training event
next weekend. Our *MEETUP DATE IS NOW CHANGED FROM 11 JUN TO 04 JUN* *2011
(Saturday)* at 1800 hours at SICSR, Atur Centre, Model Colony. Room No 704.
7th floor.
Hisham Mundol, National Program Coordinator, who is leading the Campus
Ambassador programme, will be in Pune for a week for masterminding the
event. Bishakha Datta, Trustee, will be gracing the event on Saturday. Tinu
Cherian, the quintessential Indian outreach activist, will also be coming
for and participating in the meet - a rare treat for us. I spoke to Arjuna
Rao Chawala and he has promised to confirm attendance by an Indian Chapter
representative soon.
We have a number of people visiting us from abroad. Frank Schulenburg, Head
of Public Outreach and Annie Lin, who leads the Ambassador Program are
visiting Pune for the Campus Ambassador training event on 04-05 Jun 2011. We
also have P.J. Tabit coming down to India between June 1st and August 21st
to support the launch of the Wikipedia India Education Program. PJ is a
Campus Ambassador in the US and is on the Ambassador Steering Committee for
Wikipedia. We, the Pune community, welcome Frank, Annie & PJ to Pune and
hope they have a wonderful stay.
We also welcome any members of the Wikimedian community in India from
outside Pune who are going to be with us for this event. Do let us know if
we can help you in any way.
Broadly speaking, the campus ambassadors will be trained on 4th and 5th Jun
by the outreach team comprising lndian and foreign Wikipedians. In the
evening on Saturday, the campus ambassadors and the outreach team will be
present for our meetup.* After the meetup, the Outreach Team has invited the
Pune Wikipedia community for a* *SOCIAL EVENING WITH DINNER*. Venue for
social evening will be indicated at the meetup.
Coming to another issue, the Campus Ambassadors themselves.
The first batch of Campus Ambassadors has been selected. To those selected,
we say - heartiest congratulations, you will shortly be learning to edit and
to evangelise Wikipedia. It is a most challenging task and we assure you of
the community's support. We invite you to be part of our community and we
promise to help you, guide you and partner you in this extraordinary journey
you will undertake.
We also know that some other aspirants have not been selected this time
round. In most cases, this is due to their lack of Wikipedia skills. To all
of them we say - there will be another round of selection coming up in a few
months, so have a great heart and wait. The fact that all of you stood tall
and came forth means you already belong to the select batch of people who
are doers and achievers. We, the Pune community, invite you to join us for
this meetup and become part of us. We will help you get the skills to make
you ready for the next round of selections.
*Many of you all who are interested in becoming Wikipedians are requested to
join all of the above :*
- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mr-wiki/ (Marathi Wikipedia Group)
- https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l (Mailing
list for Wikimedians in Pune, India)
- https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-pun (Mailing
list for Wikimedians in Pune, India)
*Also please join the following groups on Facebook*
- Wikimedia India
- WikiPuneri
*IMPORTANT*: All those attending the meetup from Pune (excepting those
selected for the Campus Ambassador program or those organising the event or
visiting from outside Pune) need to confirm attendance so that we can plan
accordingly. Send your confirmation to :
ashwin.baindur(a)gmail.com with subject : "Attending Pune meetup". Those not
attending need not respond.
So till then, Au revoir & Namaste, Khuda Hafez and Sat Sri Akal,
Jai Hind
*
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Ashwin Baindur
*FirstPost : Wikipedia’s bold bid for World Heritage status*
http://www.firstpost.com/ideas/wikipedias-bold-bid-for-world-heritage-statu…
*Even by the standards of the dot-com universe, Wikipedia has been an
especially bold enterprise. It was bold to hope that many thousands of
people would give of their time to build encyclopedia entries in return for
not so much as a byline. It was bold to presume that this anonymous
community would police itself well enough to create a resource of surprising
detail and accuracy. Even its fundraising efforts are nerveless and edgy;
last year, Wikipedia tested a banner ad, displayed prominently at the top of
every page, that read: “Admit it – without Wikipedia, you never could have
finished that report. Click here to keep Wikipedia free for future
students.”*
*
*
*This roll-call of audacity notwithstanding, Wikipedia’s latest move may be
its boldest yet. A few days ago, a German chapter of the Wikimedia
Foundation announced plans to apply for a UNESCO World Heritage label,
arguing that the site “is a masterpiece of human creative genius and is also
of universal human value”.*
*
*
*In the case of Wikipedia, a World Heritage status would promise a crucial
degree of financial solvency and freedom from advertisements. In the pic:
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Reuters*
*These words weren’t chosen casually; UNESCO insists, as a part of its six
criteria for cultural heritage, that the property “represent a masterpiece
of human creative genius” and that it exhibit “an important interchange of
human values”. For Wikipedia, these two claims are debatable, but when I
went through the other four stipulations, I found some remarkable overlaps.
Wikipedia can certainly maintain that it “bears a unique… testimony to a
cultural tradition”, that it is an “outstanding example of… a technological
ensemble” and of “human interaction” with a particular environment, and that
it is directly associated with “ideas… of outstanding universal
significance”. UNESCO, for its part, has played all this cautiously. “Anyone
can apply,” Susan Williams, the head of media relations at UNESCO in Paris,
told the New York Times. “But it may have difficulty fulfilling the
criteria.”*
*
*
*In the case of Wikipedia, perhaps more than in the case of other UNESCO
properties, a World Heritage status would promise a crucial degree of
financial solvency and freedom from advertisements. Last November, Jay
Walsh, a Wikimedia communications official, mentioned that the foundation’s
operating budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year was slated at $20 million,
$16 million of which it hoped to raise through donations – not the most
stable of business models. A World Heritage label would makes properties
eligible for limited UNESCO funding, but it also makes member nations
responsible for keeping these properties in shape.*
*
*
*Wikipedia’s gambit is an odd one: It has to assert that it is vigorously
relevant even as it asks to be put on a list that otherwise includes defunct
monuments or endangered natural formations. Moreover, it has to redefine –
for UNESCO and for us – the very concept of heritage in a digital age. Can a
10-year-old website – housed in fragments on various servers in various
countries, present everywhere and nowhere, belonging to everyone and no-one
– even be a heritage artifact?*
*
*
*Aditya Dev Sood thinks it can. Sood is the founder of the Center for
Knowledge Societies, a New Delhi-based consultancy that works closely in the
digital environment. There is, Sood says, a continuity of cultural
technology that Wikipedia fits into, and that continuity confers a certain
historical relevance upon Wikipedia. He identifies as parts of this lineage
the Rosetta Stone – the tablet that helped decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs –
and the Antikythera Mechanism, a mechanical computer dating back to around
150 BC. Neither is on UNESCO’s list, but unlike them, Wikipedia fulfills an
additional role: It is at the centre of a large, involved community, as a
heritage property ought to be.*
*
*
*“My instinct is, it would be facile for Wikipedia to just apply on the
basis that there’s nothing else like it,” Sood says. “They need to go beyond
that, to say that they are the first real exemplar of the model of free
knowledge – a model that is spreading, as our world is Wikifying rapidly.”
Indeed, this is what Wikipedia is arguing in its petition which states:*
*
*
*[I]t is not our main objective to meet single UNESCO criteria but to
emphasise the project as the greatest ever collection of human knowledge… It
is not only a success story in the history of the Internet, but a success
story for a paradigm change in the treatment of free knowledge.*
*
*
*There is also the most obvious question of antiquity. The youngest site on
the World Heritage list, the Sydney Opera House, is 38 years old, but the
ages of most of the others number in the centuries. “In general, the older
a site is, the more interesting it is, and the more curious it gets to be.
We stand before it and ask: ‘How did people relate to it? How did they do
it? What was that world like?’” says Sunil Kumar, a cultural historian at
Delhi University. Kumar observes also that manmade heritage sites are
usually “dead” – frozen for posterity in a particular form – even if they’re
still functional. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus is still a working
railway station, for example, but retains the form of the original Victoria
Terminus of the early 1900s. Its World Heritage status, in fact, is supposed
to prevent that form from evolving or being replaced.*
*
*
*Sood makes a convincing argument for Wikipedia here too. With its
meticulously kept archives and extensive record of edits, Wikipedia can
offer frozen snapshots of itself at any point in its history. And this
archival material would offer an answer, in one sense, to the question that
Kumar sets up: “What was that world like?” You could, Sood says, “look to
these snapshots to examine, say, the state of different arguments on the
Israel-Palestine issue, from 2003 or 2006 or whatever. And that could be a
very valuable resource for historians.”*
*
*
*Ironically, what may scuttle Wikipedia’s ambition is precisely what has
made it so valuable in the first place: its freedom from any political or
national affiliation. UNESCO requires that a country sponsor a property’s
nomination. While the Wikimedia Foundation has announced that it will look
to Germany to fulfill this requirement, it is a random choice; it could,
just as convincingly or unconvincingly, look to Indonesia, Slovenia or
Turkey, in whose languages Wikipedia pages exist.*
*
*
*UNESCO’s requirement is partly pragmatic – because, after all, a member
state must bear the responsibility for a site’s maintenance – but is also
rooted in practice. The standard way that historians understand manmade
heritage today, Kumar says, is in terms of a national identity, such that a
heritage property forms a stitch in the fabric of a country’s cultural
patrimony.*
*
*
*Wikipedia cannot claim to be a part of any country’s patrimony. Indeed, it
must not. What it can argue, however, is that it represents a new type of
heritage property: an intangible one that has, right from its inception,
been created by and belonged to humanity at large, maintained by a
foundation or a corporation. It is a redefinition that will start to fit
more and more of our virtual creations, built on behalf of stateless
entities in an increasingly borderless world.*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/wiki/In_the_news#May_2011