WikimediaIndia-l October 2012

wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

30 participants
26 discussions

[Press]: Lessons and tips on getting media coverage
by Noopur Raval 25 Sep '18

25 Sep '18

Dear all, Over the past one month, we've been working with community members from Assamese, Kannada Malayalam and Nepali communities to get maximum possible media coverage and press support in order to highlight their community and events and hopefully get new editors for our movement. In all cases, I help prepare the press release<http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%…>(as, kn, ml, ne), then community members translate it and then we work together to try and reach out to the widest possible audience. Here are a few links to the press releases and newspaper articles. There are a few in local language papers that are not online. Also, all these reports are due to the collaborative effort and very important follow up by community members like Jyoti, Bishnu, Gitartha, Omshivaprakash, Anoop, Ramesh, Kannan, Sujith, Saroj and Ganesh for the communities respectively. Assamese: http://www.northeasttoday.in/our-states/assam/assamese-wikipedia-celebrates… http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=765639 http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/info-tech/article3… http://www.sify.com/news/assamese-wikipedia-completes-10-years-of-existence… http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/assamese-wikipedia-completes-10-… http://issuu.com/assamese/docs/ghy_13062012?mode=window&backgroundColor#222… http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120611/jsp/northeast/story_15594299.jsp http://sevensisterspost.com/?p=17895 http://amarasom.glpublications.in/Details.aspx?id=9509&boxid=103211609 Kannada: http://epaper.udayavani.com/Display.aspx?Pg=H&Edn=MN&DispDate=6/18/2012 http://allevents.in/Bangalore/483961428297721 Malayalam: http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=82424 http://keralaitnews.com/state-scan/other-cities/4717-kollam-to-host-malayal… http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/article3351423.e… http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-04-14/social-media/3134186… http://www.techgoss.com/Story/557S12-Wiki-Malayalam-Meet-held-at-Kerala.aspx http://article.wn.com/view/2012/04/28/Malayalam_wiki_most_innovative/ http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/sci-tech/hitech/malayalam-wiki-most… http://ibnlive.in.com/news/malayalam-wikipedia-could-be-emulated/253196-60-… http://newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/article390787.ece Nepali: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/34914418/Nagarik_Article.png https://dl.dropbox.com/u/34914418/karobar_article.png Radio Sagarmatha broadcasted an interview with a Wikipedian Ganesh Paudel... Radio Nepal Bani Broadcasted an interview with Wikipedians located in Kathmandu (Mr. Ganesh Paudel and Mr. Saroj Dhakal) Just thought I'd share a few pointers based on what went right and what could have been better on my part. This may help you in the future if you too are looking to get media attention for your community and events. A few lessons: *Planning:* - Database of contacts: We have put in place a fairly comprehensive database of English as well as local press, television and radio contacts. I'd be happy to share them with anyone who needs to get in touch with journalists. - In case of local language newspapers, calling a journalist/newspaper office or personally visiting them to give the press brief always works better than e-mailing. Most local language newspapers still prefer a hard copy of the brief or even ask for a fax sometimes. - For the Assamese anniversary celebrations, we had an agenda well in advance and we (the community members and I) made sure the press release was ready in English as well as in Assamese so we could send it out to newspapers, television channels and radio stations. - Regarding English language newspapers, it is always advisable to call first and then e-mail the brief to a senior editor as well as a staff reporter (at least two people within the organization) to ensure the story receives due attention. Attaching a few photographs of your past meetups is a good idea. - It is advisable to translate the press release and attach both versions while sending it to the journalist. - If you are planning to have an event on the weekend, make sure you call and e-mail much earlier during the week. *Event:* - Always make sure to invite the journalists to your event. This will not only help in getting a comprehensive story but will also encourage them to take up editing. - Dealing with news channels and radio stations: While DY 365 channel covered the Assamese meetup, other channels did not bother to follow up. For radio, it *only* works if you speak to them in local language. *Other tips:* - It is a *must* to put in a contact number of preferably an email ID at the end of a press release. Maybe all communities should have either a chapter email ID (like bengali(a)wikimedia.in) or a gmail ID run by an active community member. This can be super useful and will avoid giving out personal details. - Building a quote pool: How about we keep a few quotes from different community members on the basics - (examples: why I edit, how I edit, what is your message to fellow Marathi/Tamil/Gujarati speakers) ? Of course, quotes from people are crucial and must not be misused but, this can help the Chapter communications team too - Getting the article right: Spelling mistakes, misquoted information, erroneous figures are a common problem with Wikipedia stories. Although it may not always be possible, do request the journalist to show you the article before publishing it. - Targeting news agencies: After the Assamese press experience, I realized having one PTI press release ensures that the story reaches at least 4-5 newspapers. This is a very effective way of maximizing media coverage. I might have missed out on a few lessons and invite community members and the chapter communication team to contribute with more inputs. Maybe we can even document this on Meta for future reference. Thank you, Best Noopur -- Noopur Raval

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Please add your name to the Geographical List of Indian Wikipedians
by Ashwin Baindur 31 Jul '18

31 Jul '18

Hello friends, This is a link I recommend you to bookmark. http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Geographical_distribution_of_Indian_Wikipedians This list is useful for outreach & also whenever someone needs Wiki-Help in a particular city. It would be great if Wikipedians could update this list.:) We have the following completely unrepresented states/UTs: * Andaman & Nicobar Islands * Arunachal Pradesh * Assam * Chandigarh * Chhattisgarh * Dadra, Nagar & Haveli * Daman & Diu * Goa * Himachal Pradesh * Jammu & Kashmir * Jharkhand (AngPradesh is in Mumbai) * Lakshadweep * Manipur * Meghalaya * Mizoram * Puducherry * Punjab (oye, ye ki hoya!) * Nagaland * Uttar Pradesh * Uttarakhand Okay, all you admins, please update your status (Mikey my boy, that means you too)! Abroad, we dont have Indic Wikipedians listed for: * Africa * Australia * Asia (other than India) * Middle East * North America * South America Unless you would like to stay off list, of course that's acceptable too. May I also request Tinu / list admins to please forward it all the Indic language & city Wikimedia lists. We need this resource to be as comprehensible as possible. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur ------------------------------------------------------

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Mobile sites of Indic Wikipedias
by Srikanth Lakshmanan 28 Feb '13

28 Feb '13

Hi all, Needless to repeat the <India-Indic-Mobile-Growth> story. But I was surprised even with that, many Indic wikipedias do not have a mobile site(or some have gone dead since they failed to update for MobileFrontend[1] changes), even the ones that had weren't very much usable. Lets not cite, mobile phones do not have fonts, no one uses Indic on mobile, we all know lot of people do use Opera-mini with complex script rendering support. * Please visit <yourlanguage>.m.wikpedia.org and see if there is a page. If it has nothing but 'search, license, and action control' links, here[2] are the steps that an admin need to do to get a mobile site running with content. If you have problem in doing those, come and ask at #wikimedia-tech (or #mediawiki {?}). * When I visited Tamil wikipedia mobile site, I was restricted to content that was put on mainpage, the links in it. Since my Symbian phone doesnt have Indic input system, I cant search anything. The solution to this is to have a list of articles in alphabetical order *and* display it in mobile front page, like Assamese wikipedians have done[3]. Many Indic wikis have this template, but few show it on main page. This might be incredibly useful on mobile versions. More thoughts on improving Mobile sites welcome :) Mobile sites are important since, 1. Lot of people will be using this. 2. The Wikipedia app uses this(?) [Correct me if am wrong] [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MobileFrontend [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects/Mobile_Gateway#Mobile_homepa… [3] http://as.m.wikipedia.org/ -- Regards Srikanth.L

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Fwd: [Wikikn-l (kannada wikipedia)] Global Vandalism through IP 212.121.219.1 on Indian territory info
by Harish 30 Dec '12

30 Dec '12

This has been observed and reverted in Kannada wikipedia. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tejas jain <teju2friends(a)gmail.com> Date: 2012/2/2 Subject: [Wikikn-l (kannada wikipedia)] Global Vandalism through IP 212.121.219.1 on Indian territory info To: wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, wikikn-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Some one has done global vandalism through IP 212.121.219.1< http://toolserver.org/%7Eluxo/contributions/contributions.php?user=212.121.… >on Indian territory info. User's edit list: http://toolserver.org/~luxo/contributions/contributions.php?user=212.121.21… Arunachal pradesh <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arunachal_Pradesh> and Jammu_and_Kashmir <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir> are hatched as disputed. Was there any discussion before these changes? All the edits on Kannada wiki <http://kn.wikipedia.org/> have been reverted because of following reasons, 1. No discussion prior to the changes 2. No references were made 3. Changes done anonymously 4. No change log message 5. No such changes are done on English wiki If it is sure case of vandalism, changes have to be reverted globally. Thanks, Tejas jain < http://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B2%B8%E0%B2%A6%E0%B2%B8%E0%B3%8D%E0%B2%AF:… > _______________________________________________ Wikikn-l mailing list Wikikn-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikikn-l -- Harish 9740069624

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Power situation in India: New threat for Wikimedia growth?
by Ravishankar 29 Oct '12

29 Oct '12

Hi, Since 2009, most of Tamilnadu is facing a power crisis. It started with few hours of power cut. For the last few months, it has gone up to *18 to 20 hours of unscheduled power cut every single day. *Only Chennai city is exempted with a 2 hour power cut. Government is not sure when the crisis will be resolved. It could be next year or it could take few more years. What this means for the growth of Wikimedia expansion in Tamilnadu? Every single contributor in Tamilnadu that I talk to are *unable to contribute to their full capacity* because of the power cuts. I fear that this may be a *bigger concern in attracting new contributors*. When there is only few hours of power left, other major concerns like work and study will be given priority. There won't be much time for hobbies and forget geeky activities like Wikipedia editing. This is a *major blow* given the fact that computer and internet usage was increasing in the last few years. How is the power situation in other states? Ravi

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WMIN Executive Committee for 2012-13 takes charge
by Arjuna Rao Chavala 28 Oct '12

28 Oct '12

Dear Members and Community, At the outset, on behalf of Wikimedia India Executive Committee for 2011-12, I would like to thank you all for the support for the Chapter during the past year, as we strived hard to complete the boot strapping phase of the Chapter. I am glad to report that the boot strapping phase is now complete, as the Chapter is financially healthy, staffed and has conducted AGM and Elections for EC vacancies successfully, apart from spearheading Wiki Academy events and partnerships with various stakeholders. I would like to place on record my thanks to all co-founders and EC team members,volunteers from members and community, Achal, Bishakha, WMF staff,WMF board members, Manuel Schneider and partners and consultants for all the contributions and support towards reaching this important milestone. Recently we had inducted the newly elected EC members with an EC induction program at Bangalore. As part of it, we have completed the office bearer elections for the 2012-13. I would like to introduce the new team that has taken charge. Sudhanwa Jogalekar [image: Sudhanwa Jogalekar] <http://wiki.wikimedia.in/File:Sudhanwa1.JPG> Sudhanwa Jogalekar is an IT professional with expertise in Information security, system administration, IT infrastructure management etc with over 27 years experience in the industry. He is an Electrical Engineer from College Of Engineering, Pune with 2 additional management degrees and a professional certification of ISO 27001 Lead Auditor. He has done many projects for corporates, SMEs and Academic Institutions for IT infrastructure, Information Security, E-learning etc. He is a well known FOSS evangelist in India and has been promoting FOSS for the last 13 years. He has been co-ordinating PLUG (Pune GNU/Linux Users Group) for many years and conducting workshops, seminars, trainings in/around Pune and other places across India. He has contributed to Indic computing activities (Marathi/Devanagari). He has released a Marathi font family for free. He is active on various technical and non-technical groups and helped promote Wikimedia projects. He has organised a complete track on Wikipedia activites in GNUNIFY 2011. Apart from organising various events and activities related to Wikimedia(like launch of Marathi Wikisource, participating in CMDA expo etc.), he also co-ordinates regular meetups of Wikipedians in Pune (WikiPuneri). Being a photographer he is involved with various photographers groups and is active in Photographic society of Pune. He is elected to the Executive Committee in September 2011 and served as Chair of City/Language SIGs till Oct 2012. He is elected as *President* in Oct 2012. - More details available on his website http://www.sudhanwa.com - Email: sudhanwa [at] wikimedia.in - Wikimedia username: sudhanwa - Twitter: @sudhanwa <http://twitter.com/sudhanwa> - Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sudhanwa.jogalekar Karthik Nadar [image: Karthik Nadar] <http://wiki.wikimedia.in/File:Karthik.jpg> Karthik Nadar is a final year B.Com student from Mumbai, specializing in Banking, financing, accounting and insurance. He started his contributions to English Wikipedia in mid 2010 and became very active from the following year. In English Wikipedia, Karthik has more than 18K edits and so far has contributed for 10 Good articles. Started working on Indian film related articles, he later on ventured on into political, India and Mumbai related articles. Karthik is autoreviewer, rollbacker and filemover on the English Wikipedia. He also serves as coordinator for WikiProject Mumbai. Karthik is also active on Wikimedia Commons, where he has uploaded hundreds of images and has an edit count of 1,250. He has fixed some small templates and layout issues on Tamil Wikipedia and contributed few articles in Hindi Wikipedia. In 2011, he was featured on Wikimedia Fundraising banners<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/L11_1212_WMUK_KarthikB/en>. Subsequently he became active in Wikipedia Mumbai community and contributed towards organizing second Photo-thon in Mumbai and few other events. He volunteered to be part of core team for organising "Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 in India" and played a key role along with Naveen Francis in making it a success. He is elected to the Executive Committee during September 2012 and current serves as the *Secretary*. Apart from his contributions to Wikimedia Movement, he is an aspiring photo journalist and a passionate drummer. - Wikimedia username: Karthikndr - Email: Karthikndr[image: at ]wikimedia.in - Twitter: @Karthikndr <http://twitter.com/karthikndr> - Facebook: fb.com/karthikndr Anirudh Singh Bhati [image: Anirudh Singh Bhati] <http://wiki.wikimedia.in/File:Anirudh.png> Anirudh Singh Bhati is a technology lawyer based in Ahmedabad. He is a contributor to Wikimedia projects since January 2006 and is mostly active on the English Wikipedia project where he is also an administrator. He is one of the founding members of Wikimedia Chapter (India). He currently serves as the *Treasurer*. - Wikimedia: Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington - Facebook: http://en-gb.facebook.com/bhati - LinkedIN: http://in.linkedin.com/in/anirudhbhati - Email: anirudh[image: at ]wikimedia.in Nikita Belavate [image: Nikita Belavate] <http://wiki.wikimedia.in/File:Nikita.jpg> Nikita Belavate is a pre-final year student of 5 year M-tech Integrated degree in Biotechnology and Bioinformatics. She is based in Mumbai. She attended 'Wiki-Conference India' held in Nov-2011, which gave her the exposure to Wikipedia Community at large. She was inspired by the event and became active English Wikipedian in December 2011. She helped conduct meetups, photo-walks and outreach sessions in Mumbai. Her interests include encouraging and improving women participation in Wikipedia and other projects. She is elected to the Executive committee in Sep 2012 and is the first female Executive Committee Member to serve on board of 'Wikimedia India'. She currently serves as *Member* - Wikimedia User Handle: Nikita - Email: nikita.sb[at]wikimedia[dot]in - Facebook: nikitabelavate <http://en-gb.facebook.com/nikitabelavate> Pranav [image: Pranav] <http://wiki.wikimedia.in/File:Pranav.jpg> Pranav is a Consultant in the field of Marketing Management based in Mumbai and currently works with a Social Media firm.. He has been associated with the Wikimedia Movement since 2006 as an editor and image contributor. He holds a B.Com degree from the University of Mumbai and an MBA from Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow. Pranav served as the Chairman of the Organising Committee for WikiConference India 2011 (WCI) organised jointly by Wikimedia Mumbai Community and Wikimedia India, with active involvment of 11 teams consisting of over 50 volunteers. He was granted a Fellowship from the Wikimedia Foundation for this task. Apart from WCI, Pranav has been one of the few Wikipedians instrumental in hosting of several community Meetups, Photowalks, Workshops and Academies in Mumbai. He is the first person to sign up as a member of Wikimedia Chapter using electronic funds transfer of membership fees. In September 2012, Pranav was elected to the Executive Committee of Wikimedia chapter and currently serves as *Member*. In addition to this he devotes time to other charitable/philanthropic activities as well,serving as a Member of the Board of Trustees of four Mumbai based Public Charitable Trusts which operate in Health, Education and other functional areas. Twitter: @Curumsey Email: pranav [at] wikimedia [dot] in Srikanth Ramakrishnan [image: Srikanth Ramakrishnan] <http://wiki.wikimedia.in/File:SrikanthR.jpg> Srikanth Ramakrishnan is a 20-year old student based out of Coimbatore, Chennai and Bangalore. He has been a contributor to the English Wikipedia since 2005 and has been a regular at Bangalore meetups since 2009. He has also held various outreach sessions across Tamil Nadu. On Wikipedia, his primary interests include editing transport, Indian economy, JAVA programming area articles. He is elected to Wikimedia India Executive Committee in Sep 2012 and currently serves as a *Member*. - Wikimedia: User:Rsrikanth05, en-wiki User page<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rsrikanth05> - Email: srik.ramk[image: at ]wikimedia.in Viswa Prabha [image: Viswa Prabha] <http://wiki.wikimedia.in/File:Viswa.jpg> Viswanathan Prabhakaran is an engineer, project manager and technology consultant by profession. After acquiring his B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Government Engineering college, Thrissur in 1986, he initiated his career in computer industry. Keeping pace with the rapid evolution of technology, he has aligned his career path with industrial automation, communications, laboratory science etc. finally culminating into advanced biomedical engineering. He has travelled extensively both within and outside India and has lived and worked with a vast mixture of cultures and communities. He is elected to Wikimedia India EC in Sep 2012 and currently serves as a *Member* At present, he is living in his home town in Kerala, occasionally travelling, spending most of his time voluntarily for social causes and the Wikipedia movement. - E-Mail: viswaprabha [at] wikimedia.in - Wikipedia+: User: ViswaPrabha We are confident that under the new EC's leadership Wikimedia Movement and Chapter in India will grow to greater heights in the year to come. We request you all to extend the support and actively engage with Wikimedia India to achieve the vision of sharing free knowledge with every one for building a Knowledge Society. Please join me in wishing the new team all success. Cheers Arjuna Rao Chavala President,Wikimedia India Jan 2011 - Oct 2012 ------------------------------- PS: if you are replying, please take a moment to select only required to addresses, as it has been sent to multiple lists.

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New blog post: Overcoming a generation gap
by Arun Ramarathnam 28 Oct '12

28 Oct '12

Dear Wikimedians, A new post is on the Wikimedia blog featuring Sucheta Ghoshal and new Bengali wikipedia contributor "SohojKotha" (meaning simple words). Makes for an excellent read. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/10/26/editing-wikipedia-and-overcoming-a-gen… Kudos Sucheta for bringing on board a senior contributor to Bengali wikipedia and wikisource. regards Arun P.S: The blog post is in Bangla and English

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Wikimedia Language Engineering Meetups in Pune and Bangalore
by Srikanth Lakshmanan 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

Hello all, The Wikimedia Language Engineering team[1] invites Indic wikipedians and people who are interested in language support for their wikiprojects for a meetup with us. Language teams are Wikimedia community members with a common interest (compare with SIG) to help improve, provide feedback and help educate our language communities of readers and editors about Wikimedia software enhancements and tools built by the langauge engineering team. This meetup is to get a face-to-face introduction to language technologies available on the Wikimedia websites and learn more about how to best use these. We will be in Pune[2] on the 4th November and Bangalore[3] on 11th November. (For a change a Bangalore Wikimeetup can be held in a different part of city :)). Please sign up on the page, looking forward to meeting you and working together on improving language support :) [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Language_Engineering_team [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Pune_Language_Engineering_Meetup_November_20… [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bangalore_Language_Engineering_Meetup_Novemb… -- Regards Srikanth.L

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Wikipedia Workshop for Women in Mumbai
by Krutikaa Jawanjal 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

Hello folks, The plan for Wikipedia Workshop for Women in Mumbai is up. Its going to take place on Sunday, November 4th. All women are cordially invited to join us at the workshop. Sign-up here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WWWM We are all excited for the workshop. Do send us your best wishes and help up in spreading a word. :) Regards, Krutikaa

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[A2K]: Blog updates on recent Wikipedia events
by noopur 25 Oct '12

25 Oct '12

Dear all, Here are a few blog post updates on the recent events, education program workshops as well as the Access to Knowledge program plan. Please do have a look and post your feedback on how we could do things better! All Wikipedia - Access to Knowledge posts are filed here: http://cis-india.org/openness/blog Recent updates: # Launch of the Assamese Wikipedia education program: http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-p… # Wikipedia workshop @ Inmantec College, Ghaziabad: http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-workshop-ghaziabad # Bengaluru: A Hub for Kannada and Sanskrit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects!: http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/bengaluru-a-substratum-to-kannada-and-sa… # Access to Knowledge program plan: http://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan Thank you, Best Noopur Raval

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WikimediaIndia-l October 2012