Dear all,
Please join me in congratulating our Malayalam Wikimedia Community for the
Successful WikiSangamotsavam 2013. The entire team handled every things in
a much better way. I hope it serves as a platform and as an example for
many other regional/indic communities. The excitement is unbeatable.
It was nice to see many Wikipedians, and this kinda events really proves to
bring out all Wikipedians who have been contributing in a much better and
different way but we only know them with their usernames.
Congratulations again :-)
--
Regards from Mumbai,
Karthik Nadar.
Secretary, Wikimedia India Chapter.
Bangalore, India.
http://wiki.wikimedia.in
Dear All my Wikimedia friends,
As you know all about that, we are participating & space a stall at Kolkata
Book Fair 2014 ( 29 January (Tuesday) to 9 February (Sunday) 2014.
We have some thoughts of our activities below....
1) On-spot India Chapter membership for visitors if they wish.
2) Distribute Chapter Brochures, Welcome to Wikipedia Brochure.
3) Distribute Bengali Wikipedia Brochures.
4) Need 3/4 dedicated volunteers for 12 days 1PM-8PM
5) Continuous running videos regarding Wikipedia ( Jimmy speech,
Wikimania/WCI event images, and many more)
6) Display all banner and etc
7) Short Quiz contest for visitors.
8) Q&A for visitor.
9) Everyday one hour Small Workshop
Anything new thought/feedback/suggestions are welcome.
Jayanta Nath
On behalf of Kolkata Wikimedia Team
Dear all,
Just to give all of you a heads up that the 24th meetup of the Mumbai community will now be held on December 25, 2013 instead of December 22, 2013. Do come!
warm regards,
Pradeep
Pradeep Mohandas
How Pradeep uses email? - http://goo.gl/6v1I9
Here is the event page of the GLAM workshop at National Museum, New Delhi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/NM
L Shyamal, Konarak Ratnakar, Noopur, and Arun Ram will be the Trainers /
Mentors during this event.
Those who want to contribute by participating in this event either directly
or remotely may sign up in the page.
A talk by Mr Andrew Gray of WMUK will be held at the Auditorium of National
Museum, Jan Path, New Delhi
Regards,
Sowmyan
96329 11650
Executive manager,
Wikimedia Chapter,
Bangalore
*DNA : "Wiki, in your own tongue "*
http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report-heroes-2013-from-global-to-hyper-loc…http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?pgNo=18&edcode=820009&eddate=201…
Screenshot :
https://twitter.com/tinucherian/status/414040680680284160/photo/1/large
If information empowers, then Wikipedia must be a powerhouse. The world's
largest data repository has gone from being an online encyclopaedia to
becoming a cornucopia of global and local knowledge.
If you use a computer in your day-to-day live, chances are you have used
Wikipedia on more than several occasions to find countless bits of
information. From history of personalities to the geography of a town, and
everything in between, Wikipedia has it all.
A fine example of a crowd-sourced information bank, it has grown
exponentially over the years. It has become increasingly hyper local and
expanded its database to accommodate micro nuggets of information. So,
whether it is the history of an old temple down your street, or the heroics
of a local genius you may not have otherwise heard of, or even information
made available in your mother tongue, the editors on Wikipedia work
relentlessly to gather and digitise every piece of information, in several
languages.
“When I started contributing to Wikipedia in 2005-06, it was predominantly
in English,” recounts Tinu Cherian, a veteran Wikipedia editor,
administrator and former Wikimedia India chapter board member. Cherian has
started over 2,000 articles and has 50,000 edits to his credit. “But over
the last few years, the trend has changed. There is a marked increase in
local language enthusiasts, who regularly contribute in their native
languages.”
Wikipedia is currently available in 20 Indian languages, including in Pali;
the resource is in incubation stages for another 20 languages. The
Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada and Tamil Wikipedias have tens of thousands of
articles — respective wiki communities recently celebrated their 10th
anniversaries — while pages in Hindi are close to over a lakh. “To keep
language sections updated is a challenging task, and it is to the credit of
our volunteers who dedicate hours ensuring accurate information is
accessible,” explains Cherian.
Wikipedia volunteers also organise regular meetings and academic sessions
to train new volunteers. “The very first regular wiki meet-up in India was
held at my place years ago,” recalls Cherian. “Since then, we've had
hundreds of meet ups around the country, with a growing network of hundreds
of volunteers.”
The volunteer base itself is extremely diverse. Editors are as young as
14-year-olds and as senior as those in their late 70s. “They represent
varied backgrounds and some even work despite limited Internet access.
Their dedication is awe inspiring,” says Cherian.
“Now everyone can create and incubate pages in their local languages. Apart
from making information accessible, I also see this as an opportunity to
preserve local languages that seem to be getting replaced by languages with
commercial significance,” says Moksh Juneja, president, Wikimedia India.
Talking about the growing popularity of local wiki pages, Juneja says,
“Konkani is the most recent addition to the local language pages and the
Konkani University in Goa is donating articles to Wikipedia. It is also
remarkable to note that many local language articles are contributed and
edited by non-residents Indians.”
But Wikipedia's inclusivity goes beyond local languages. Wiki editor
Aniruddha Kumar explains this best on his page. He says: “Wikipedia is one
of the most beautiful things in the world. It takes the concept that
everyone has a basic right to information and makes it into something real
— a tool that’s free for anyone to access.” Aniruddha Kumar is among the
most active editors on Wikipedia and he is blind.
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
Important Note : Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes only.
The publisher (DNA) of the above news article owns the copyrights of the
article / content. All copyrights are duly acknowledged.
Hello all,
FYI.. in a bit advance, most probably the announcement will be on
Wikimedia-l by tomorrow. :-)
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/12/16/new-individual-engagement-grantees-to-…
Congratulations
to
all,
and Arun Ganesh (User:Planemad) from India along with Hugo Lopez
(User:Yug) from France, their project has been approved,
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Wikimaps_Atlas.
Arun, I look forward to seeing the developments as you move ahead with this
project. All the best.
Regards,
Ansuman
IEG committee member
FYI:
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Mediawiki-i18n] beta testing mobile webfonts
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2013 13:03:45 -0800
From: Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org>
Reply-To: MediaWiki internationalisation
<mediawiki-i18n(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
To: mediawiki-i18n(a)lists.wikimedia.org, mobile-tech
<mobile-tech(a)wikimedia.org>
Per conversations with Amir, Santhosh, Siebrand, and Jon, I would like
to beta test mobile webfonts on 1 wiki and then possibly add more wikis
later if the beta test does not cause any adverse effects. To this end,
I have identified seven candidate wikis that I would like your help to
narrow down further. These seven wikis meet the following criteria:
1. The language of the wiki would benefit from loading a webfont by default
2. The default font would be less than 50K in size
3. The wiki has at least 50 active users (i.e. a community)
Language Code Articles Users Active Users Font Size
Punjabi pa 8,069 6,818 61 12.6K
Gujarati gu 24,623 17,696 59 28K
Marathi mr 39,621 39,114 135 36.4K
Nepali ne 24,944 14,379 73 36.5K
Hindi hi 109,045 101,837 274 37.3K
Oriya or 4,535 5,937 76 47.8K
Kannada kn 14,384 17,455 177 48K
The main variables that I don't know are:
1. How bad is the experience on each of these wikis without webfonts?
2. Do we already have a working relationship with the communities on any
of these wikis?
If you guys could help me narrow down this list to one or two choices,
it would be greatly appreciated!
Ryan Kaldari
Dear all,
We thank you all for your support and collaboration. Please find below the details of our work in the month of November 2013.
CIS-A2K Narrative Report
This narrative report captures the work done by the A2K program during the period of September 2012 to June 2013. It examines projects and activities and its impact and outcomes over a period of the initial Ten months of the Grant. This report will also inform CIS-A2K program’s strategy for the next one year to achieve the goals set out by its donor, Wikimedia Foundation, and goals listed in our Work Plans (which were developed in consultation with the Wikimedia community in India). Importantly, this Narrative Report is critical for the Wikimedia community in India, Global Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation to get a comprehensive overview of A2K’s work and to critically assess the A2K program’s eligibility for further support. The report compiled by by T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi can be accessed at http://bit.ly/1dFyjpO.
► Announcements
CIS Signs MoU with Christ University, Bangalore (November 20, 2013): The Access to Knowledge team signed a MoU as part of which CIS-A2K and Christ University will impart Wikipedia education in Indian classrooms: http://bit.ly/1ehr8kz.
We are happy to share with you that Rahmanuddin Shaik has been selected for the role of "Community Communications Consultant" at CIS-A2K! Rahmanuddin is an active contributor on Wikimedia Commons, Telugu Wikipedia and Telugu Wikisource: http://bit.ly/1bwrEu3.
►Articles
ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ನೆಟ್ಟ ಸಸಿಗೆ ಈಗ ಹತ್ತು ವರ್ಷ (by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Kannada Prabha, November 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/17LOw4O. The article highlights 10 years of Kannada Wikipedia, the current status of the Kannada Wikipedia vis-a-vis number of articles, number of editors, active editors, and page views per month.
Train The Trainer Programme for Wikipedians (by Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, November 14, 2013):http://bit.ly/ILwLMr. The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane of DNA.
►Blog Entries
Train the Trainer Program (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18hjw0n.
Konkani Vishwakosh Under CC-BY-SA (by Nitika Tandon, November 26, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z.
► Events Organised
Wikipedia Orientation Programme for MA Students (Christ University, Bangalore, November 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/ItxAtu. Syed Muzammiluddin was the trainer. Twenty students participated.
Wikipedia Orientation Programme for the Second Language Students (Christ University, Bangalore, November 12, 13, 16 and 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1bxsOYF. T. Vishnu Vardhan, Syed Muzammiluddin and Dr. U.B.Pavanaja were the trainers. About 1200 second language students participated in the programme.
Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution — A One Day Workshop (Kalinga Institute of Social Studies, Bhubaneswar, November 14, 2013). The workshop was conducted by Subhashish Panigrahi: http://bit.ly/1fSvl1v.
Documentation and Wikipedia Workshop (Kalinga School of Management, Bhubaneswar, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/Imf0DV. Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the workshop.
Konknni Wikipedia Workshop (organised by Dalgado Konknni Akademi and CIS-A2K, Goa Central State Library, November 16 and 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSwiH5.
Tenth Anniversary of Wikipedia (H N Multimedia Hall, National College, Basavanagudi, Bangalore, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1eJ6da9. Dr. U R Ananthamurthy, Prof. G. Venkatasubbiah and Ravi Hegde were the guests of honour. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
First Phase of Odia Wikipedia Workshop (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Bhubaneswar, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18doDer. Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the workshop.
Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSAUwT. Nitika Tandon conducted the event.
Konkani Vishwakosh: Doubt Solving Session I (Goa Central State Library, November 26, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z. Nitika Tandon conducted the session.
Konkani Vishwakosh: Doubt Solving Session II (Goa Central State Library, November 28, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z. Nitika Tandon conducted the session.
Editing Sprint for Vishwakosh (Goa Central, State Library, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z. Nitika Tandon conducted the event.
► Event Co-organised
The Relaunch of Creative Commons India (co-organised by Wikimedia India, Acharya Narendra Dev College and CIS, India Islamic Cultural Centre, November 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/HPxrAO. Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development was the chief guest at the event.
► Event Participated In
Wikimedia Diversity Conference (organized by German Wikipedia Community, GLS Campus, Berlin): http://bit.ly/Ixr9W8. T. Vishnu Vardhan was a speaker at this event and made a presentation on the challenges and opportunities for the Wikimedia movement in India.
► Media Coverage
CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:
Kannada Wikipedia and its Tenth Anniversary (RadioCity, November 2, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dHEwBI.
Indian Govt to Build Machine Translation System for 22 Indic Languages (by Brindaalakshmi, Medianama, November 14, 2013): http://bit.ly/J4qg7V. CIS MoU with Goa University is mentioned.
10th anniversary of Kannada wikipedia (by ND Shiva Kumar, The Times of India, November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/IxqDr7.
Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia (Udayavani, November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1aFwqF1.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಈಗ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ. ಅದರ ಪ್ರಯುಕ್ತ ಒಂದು ಆಚರಣೆ (Avadhi Website, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/ImiBSy.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಗೆ 10, ಬೆಳವಣಿಗೆ ಸಾಲದು: ಪ್ರೊ .ಜಿವಿ (OneindiaKannada, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/19blS17.
Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia (Vijayavani, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b7exSa.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಂಭ್ರಮ (Prajavani, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hWtt9v.
ಕನ್ನಡದ ಆನ್ಲೈನ್ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ದುರ್ಬಲ (Vijaya Karnataka, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hWtsCy.
Panaji: DKA organizes two day Konkani Wikipedia workshop (Daijiworld, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1inoi03.
Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Muzammiluddin Syed, one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi and one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.
About CIS
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.
Follow us elsewhere
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
CIS group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india
Visit us at: https://cis-india.org
Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.
Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil(a)cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant(a)cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu(a)cis-india.org
CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.
Thanks
Nitika Tandon
Hello,
IEEE 1908.1 WG is pleased to release two draft virtual keyboard layouts for
Hindi and their Android apps for evaluation and feedback. The feedback is
required by 11 Dec 2013.
Please check the detailed press note (
https://mentor.ieee.org/1908.1/bp/CommunicationAboutDraftHindiKeyboardsNov2…)
for further information and share it in your circles and help the
initiative.
Sincerely
Arjuna Rao Chavala
1908.1 Working Group Chair