*The Hindu : "Wikimedia Foundation launches Campus Ambassadors Program in
Pune"*
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2079548.ece
*First city outside the U.S. and first in India to host it*
*
*
*The Wikimedia Foundation launched its Campus Ambassadors Program here on
Sunday, making Pune the first city in India and the first city outside the
United States, to host the Program. Part of the ‘India Education Program,'
the 22 Campus Ambassadors will be working towards promoting Wikipedia as a
tool in education across institutes here.*
*
*
*Speaking about the choice of Pune for the Program, Hisham Mundol of the
Foundation's India Programs said, “Pune has a strong heritage in education
and a huge student body. So when we thought of piloting the Program in
India, we knew we had to target the centre.”*
*
*
*Sharing the reason for choosing India, Frank Schulenburg, Head of Public
Outreach at the Wikimedia Foundation, said: “We need a lot more writers from
India, and a lot about India needs to be written. This is why we sensed the
biggest global opportunity in India.”*
*
*
*The Foundation's aim was also to increase the number of Indic language
pages in India. Pune, having a diverse population mix, could help in that
aspect as well, Mr. Mundol said.*
*
*
*The Program would encourage the use of Wikipedia in colleges. The Campus
Ambassadors would form a network of students and professors in the city and
train them to write and edit articles on Wikipedia, thus increasing the
academic value. One of the main aims, Mr. Mundol said, was also to get
professors to give assignments in the form of writing Wikipedia articles.
“This will enhance research and critical writing skills in students.”*
*
*
*The U.S. experience*
*
*
*Talking about the experience in the U.S., Mr. Shulenburg said, “We have
experienced that the quality of classwork gets very high when Wikipedia is
used as an education tool. The level of motivation is very ,” said Mr.
Shulenburg.*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news#June_2011
RE:Mayur - As I suggested, you could request the Chapter to appoint a regional committee (with certain autonomy, reporting directly to the EC). This should solve all your issues. Can you please explain exactly how a new chapter will help Delhi? Further I am sure your aware it took about 2 years in getting the India Chapter sorted, it takes a lot of time effort and money in dealing with bureaucracy in getting registered. By the time you have gone through that you will be zapped - just whats happened in the India Chapter case where they are now getting their bearings together. The guys have done all the hard work, let us look forward. If you feel that you could do better if you were part of the Chapter Executive Committee - stand for elections at the next AGM!
Further, its unfair to say that the Chapter and foundation are not on your side. For example, Anirudh, a member of the Chapter EC was on ground in Delhi earlier this year organising Wikipedia X celebrations. The foundation office is based in Delhi - how can you say that the Foundation has given Delhi a pass? If you have this attitude in Delhi then just imagine what the West or East of India should think - the Foundation is in the North and Chapter in the South with the East and West squashed in between! Let us remember we are part of the Union of India.
Well as it comes to age, i do not think that its a barrier here. As it comes to sysop rights, i am the largest contributor to sa wiki and to pi wiki, where I am a sysop. Well for your information, I have been engaged in contacting organizations for collaborations with pi wiki. Then it comes to bot rights, it is just my AWB account so I can add stub template to pali wikipedia articles. And as it comes to oversight, what are you talking about. I know that oversight are for those who are above 18. And now the removal, I don't think that this right is not given to me, for your information, I have also made a admin policy for sa wiki. Its not that I did it to take a revenge or anything. HPN has been inactive from 2007 on sa wiki and made Mike a crat without community consensus. I also had a fight with him regarding his removal (sorry if he felt angry with me). And who say that I have placed a bid alone, just see the local team, you will also find Mayur
there. And its a unofficial bid, who am I to place a bid, its just unofficial bid my friend. Well I don't understand why do you always classify users by seeing their joining date, not their contributions. I also wanted to have a workshop and a meetup before placing a request, and I have been in discussion about that with Mayur, but we need to know are people really interested in this so we can decide whether to raise this issue. Well I don't want to have a fight here, I already had some. Sorry If I did some wrong, But Theo, why do you always disturb me, you also said ''Which right do you want now'' on IRC when I was just having a talk with a user regarding removal of sysop rights. Well If you have any problem, tell it freely to me.
Having a new Delhi chapter could just be dropping a match in a haystack - for a spate of new regional chapters all over India. All I see this creating is politics and mayhem. It would be like the BCCI - 30+ state level associations making up the national society. Something that we can avoid and cut out the red tape/politics involved.
Further, I understand where the Delhi Community is coming from - what has the chapter done for us thus far? How have they involved us? OK, they have been a little slow, however note that the chapter registration was completed just 5 months ago. My two bits worth on this situation:
1. Our Involvement with the chapter: Membership. They have just opened up membership recently, a very good way of getting involved is applying for it. The fees have been kept low at Rs.100/- annually but if you feel thats too much for you to spare contact the Chapter and Im sure they can sort something out, it should not be a stumbling block.
2. The chapter is not doing much: If you feel that way question the Executive Committee (EC). If you are still not happy with their response then take up the matter at the AGM later this year.
3. We want something more locally: Lets be fair, it is not practically possible for the EC members to do local groundwork everywhere in this large country of ours. It would be difficult for them even if they were all paid full time employees. As things stand, the EC is made up of honorary members who have put in much hard work to get things to this level. However, let us remember they also have their own commitments to look into, their own families to feed. Maybe the chapter can appoint regional committees made up of people from the region they represent to take up local functioning in the area (Delhi in this case). This committee could directly report to the EC. This way we could keep everyone happy - and stop the chapter from disintegrating.
Hope this helps avert a mess.
Kind Regards,
User:AroundTheGlobe
No offence, But with the existence of a national chapter for India and also
Wikimedia Foundation office in Delhi, IMHO the need of Delhi chapter
is redundant. Especially when the India chapter also plans to have location
and language SIGs soon.
We don't need more organisations.. we need to get more work done only ;)
-Tinu Cherian
On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 8:38 PM, Vibhi Jain <vibhijain(a)yahoo.in> wrote:
> A new chapter proposal for *Wikimedia Delhi City* has been placed. If
> passes, it would be the fourth Sub-national chapter of Wikimedia. For
> further details, go to http://bit.ly/mHk3uT , the profits of a local
> chapter would be:
>
> * More promotion of Wikipedia in Delhi
> * More support from the Wikimedia Foundation
> * Will help in Developing wiki community
> * More Workshops
>
> At a very early phase, we need 10-20 People interested in helping to create
> a local chapter. If you are interested, then please add your name to *''People
> interested in helping to create a local chapter''* section on the link
> provided above.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-in-del mailing list
> Wikimedia-in-del(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-del
>
>
Hi,
Over the last week, we are working on changes to the wiki to support the
members only wiki (to be launched soon) and I am glad to report that most of
the changes needed are complete. We could not communicate earlier, as the
changes were not meant to have impact on community wiki. The community wiki
(http://wiki.wikimedia.in/) will continue to be available except for any
adminstrative changes to support the new features.
One feature that has been introduced is to enable email confirmation of
users to prevent Spam edits. If you notice any problem in using community
wiki, kindly bring to my notice by an email or message on my usertalk page:
user:Arjunaraoc. I will get in touch with Manuel to resolve it at the
earliest. Manuel has been helping us a lot with the enabling of new changes
and has provided us with a nice solution.
Regret the inconvenience if any caused due to these changes and thanks for
your cooperation, as we make progress in operationalising the chapter.
Cheers
Arjuna Rao Chavala
President, Wikimedia Chapter
Interesting in itself - and perhaps of greater relevance to this list, Mayur
and Sudhanwa are on the Grant Advisory Committee.
Best,
Bishakha
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Asaf Bartov <abartov(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 7:17 AM
Subject: [Foundation-l] Introducing the Grant Advisory Committee
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hello, everyone.
To those of you not (yet) following the Wikimedia Blog, let me point your
attention to my (first) blog post, introducing the Grant Advisory Committee:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/06/03/gac-it-up-introducing-the-grant-adviso…
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation
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Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hello friends,
We had hoped to have Bishakha Datta, Trustee over for the Campus Ambassador
program/ Pune meetup on 04 June 2011. Previous commitments have forced her
to regret our invitation. She has wished the community well.
We have also been informed by Arjuna Rao Chawala that due to previous
commitments, it would not be possible for any board member to attend the
pilot campus ambassador training. However, they have passed on their wishes
for a successful conduct of program.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
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