Dear all,
It is indeed pleasure for me to update about Wiki Loves Monuments India
2013.
- We have received more than 7,200 photos of monuments.
- Not a surprise: ~1,200 people have participated in the contest so far.
- For the second time, User:Anupamg has contributed maximum photos from
India.
- User:Anupamg has contributed more than 1,500 photos.
- There is a photowalk this weekend near Mysore. So, if you are in or
around, don't forget to participate: http://wlminmys2013.doattend.com/
- The jury process will start in a couple of days.
The contest is in its last week. Would love to see everyone participating,
and spreading the word. www.wikilovesmonuments.in
Regards,
Karthik Nadar.
Secretary, Wikimedia India Chapter.
http://wiki.wikimedia.in
Participate in world's largest photo contest Wiki Loves Monuments:
www.wikilovesmonuments.in
Hi all,
This is to inform you that WMIN has decided to mount a bid for Wikimedia
Conference 2014 (aka Chapters Conference).
Our reasoning to bid is based on the fact that its been two years since we
hosted WCI, a much bigger conference in size as compared to this. There is
no perfect time when we can bid, we will need to make decisive decisions
should we aspire to grow. We are yet to hold an international conference of
any size. WMConf is a closed door conference and we expect to host about
100-150 persons for this. This would be an ideal setting to test ourselves
before a Wikimania bid, say in 2-3 years time.
When we prepared the bid we looked at options in Bangalore, Chennai,
Cochin, Dharamsala, Goa, Mumbai, Srinagar/Gulmarg and Varanasi. Of these
Goa was found to be the best bet and we have prepared a bid available for
viewing at:
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wikimedia_India_Chapter:Wikimedia_Conference_2014
Link to 2013 event budget for comparison:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_IT/Wikimedia_Conference_2013
Regards,
Karthik Nadar.
Secretary, Wikimedia India Chapter.
http://wiki.wikimedia.in
Participate in world's largest photo contest Wiki Loves Monuments:
www.wikilovesmonuments.in
Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia
http://www.navhindtimes.in/goa-news/goa-university-announces-plan-upload-ko…
PANAJI: The Goa University, on Thursday, re-launched the four volumes of Konkani Vishwakosh (Konkani encyclopedia), and announced its ambitious plan to upload the same on Wikipedia – a free encyclopedia built collaboratively using Wiki software – so as to build the Konkani Wikipedia.
The university has entered into a 3-year memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), for building up the Konkani Wikipedia.
Vice Chancellor of Goa University Dr Satish Shetye, speaking during the event held at the university said that Wikipedia is a global phenomenon and a platform to bring people together for making creative activities possible, which in fact, has challenged the monopoly of publishers and created a movement in order to put together knowledge, further making it accessible to public.
“This platform will bring together Konkani speaking people of the world, besides providing an opportunity to learn about digitisation, and write Konkani of global standard.”
Dr Shetye, who incidentally noticed large number of volumes of the Konkani encyclopedia stacked in the Goa University premises, decided to take them to maximum people through their re-launch and upload on the Wikipedia.
The work for the Konkani encyclopedia project was commissioned during the tenure of vice chancellor Prof B Sheik Ali, and was carried out by various people from Dr Manoharrai Sardesai to Dr Tanaji Halarnakar, with the aid of the Konkani department at the university.
The four volumes of the 3,632 page Konkani encyclopedia are being re-released under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 to support the movement of open knowledge and open access. The programme director for the Access to Knowledge Programme of the Centre for Internet and Society, Vishnu Vardhan, speaking on the occasion said that the process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopedia on the Wikipedia would be complete in six months time, and includes processes like scanning, digitisation and creating articles as per the requirement of Wikipedia. He also stressed on the need to rewrite some of the articles in Konkani encyclopedia so as to contemporarise their contents.
Vardhan also informed that relevant training programme would be specially co-designed by the CIS as well as the university to put up the content on the Wikipedia.
Goa University is the first university in the country to re-license copyright of its content, and hence can be termed as the ‘Champion of open knowledge’, he observed. Registrar Prof V P Kamat and head of Konkani department Priyadarshini Tadkodkar were also present on the occasion.
Thanks
Nitika
Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/Konkani-Wikipedia-fr…
PANAJI: Piles of the thick four volumes of Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia waiting to be picked up by users at the Goa University (GU) will now attain a modern avatar. The volumes, work on which was first started by renowned Goan writer and academician late Manoharrai Sardessai at GU, will not only be available in digitized format, but will form the base for a Konkani Wikipedia.
Goa University has become the first varsity in the country to enter into a creative commons licence that will allow data produced and copyrighted by an Indian university available to internet users and open to modification, making GU a champion of sorts of free knowledge. The Konkani Wikipedia is expected to be ready for use within six months, officials said.
The university has signed a three-year memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Programme, which represents Wikipedia in India, for the Konkani Wikipedia project.
"Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help with the project for which training will be provided. Information in the Konkani vishwakosh will also be updated as per the current developments," Vishnu Vardhan of the centre said.
The Wikipedia is the fourth most used property on the internet after Google, Facebook and Yahoo, which acts as an internet based encyclopedia where any of the users can upload new information or update or modify an existing chapter. The Konkani Wikipedia too will offer similar privileges to users and GU's Konkani department and the centre will oversee the process from the university campus.
"The Konkani vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia," GU vice-chancellor Satish Shetye said.
Shetye said that GU is glad to associate with Wikipedia which has become a global phenomenon and broken the monopoly of publishers and converted distribution of knowledge into a democratic process.
"At present, it takes time for a page with information in a regional language to download because they are usually found in the form of scanned pages, which are accessible as images and not text. The Konkani Wikipedia will make the text accessible as is the case of any English text on the internet," GU registrar Vijayendra Kamat said. tnn
The Konkani vishwakosh was created over a period of 14 years.
Edited by late Manoharrai Sardessai and later Tanaji Halarnkar. GU staffers Ranjan Naik, Kalpana Naik, Kanchan Mordekar, Surekha Naik, Mukesh Thali and Shailendra Mehta contributed to the compilation process.
Contains four large volumes of 3,632 of total pages.
Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia encompasses world information in a nutshell with special emphasis on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc.
Wikipedia is available in 20 Indian languages including Telugu, Assamese, Marathi, but not in Konkani so far.
Students, professors and anyone interested in contributing to the project can do so by enrolling online at bit.ly/konkanivishwakosh before October 5.
Thanks
Nitika
Hello everyone,
I have attempted to put together a work plan for Gender gap activities in
India: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_gap_India_work_plan
I request inputs, comments, and suggestions from everybody.
Regards,
Rohini
--
Chairperson (Special Interest Group), Gender gap,
Wikimedia Chapter (India)
hi,
this is with reference to this email - http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-September/010415…, sent by "Zakaas Zakaas". the text of the email was scrubbed as HTML. The content of the text is here - http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/attachments/20130915/… reproduced below:
"While the new ECs are still deciding the new office bearers, there are some observations which are of serious concern. It is known fact that Karthik(secratory) is employee of Moksha(president) and Pranav is employee/consultant to Moksha</p>In the true spirit of wikipedia, where transparancy is atmost important, and conflict of interests are taken seriously, have these<br />people given any disclaimer about this information (employee, employer relationship) in advancIt will be nice to know the concern people stand regarding this matter.
It is interesting to note that while the author asks for transparency, he is not transparent himself. Let us assume that the alias is taken for the sake of revealing this "truth". Unfortunately, just using the alias is insufficient, in my opinion. One must also be able to mask one's partiality to the language one uses for the mask to be complete.
In this case, I can easily identify the author as Viswaprabha. He's the only person I know of who calls Moksh Moksha.
Pradeep Mohandas
How Pradeep uses email? - http://goo.gl/6v1I9
by Frederick FN Noronha फ्रेड्रिक न ोरोन्या *فريدريك نورونيا
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Re-release_of_Konkani_Vishwakosh_un…
Re-releasing the Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopedia) and building the Konkani
Wikipedia.
On Sept 26, 2013, Thursday, at 10 am. Conference Hall, Goa University,
Taleigao
An initiative by the Goa University in collaboration with The Centre for
Internet and Society Access to Knowledge.
Please consider this as a personal invitation. Come join hands in the
campaign to promote free accesst o knowledge in one’s mother tongue –
Konkani.
This is an initiative taken by the Goa University towards sharing and
preserving knowledge in the Konkani language. Goa University has generously
approved the re-release of the Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopedia) under the
Creative Comons License (CC-BY-SA-3.0) to make it freely available to the
public and thus preserve the Konkani language and culture in the digital
era. This encyclopedia will also serve as the main source of building and
writing articles on the Konkani Wikipedia.
This is a major step towards showcasing the Konkani community and language
on a global platform such as the Konkani Wikipedia.
NOTE FROM FN: The above is an invite which Nitika Tandon requested to
share. In view of the concerns that other scripts (Roman, Kannada among
others) should not be excluded from this project, I have suggested that
copyright-expired dictionaries in those scripts, for a start, could
likewise be digitized, shared and updated as some parallel project. Please
send in your views and comments on this issue to Nitika Tandon <
nitika(a)cis-india.org>, Sunil Abraham <sunil(a)cis-india.org>, Hariett
Vidyasagar outofindia(a)gmail.com and vishnu(a)cis-india.org
--
FN Land +91-832-240-9490 Cell +91-982-212-2436 fn(a)goa-india.org
