WikimediaIndia-l April 2014

wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

44 participants
36 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 30 Jul '18

30 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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Updated Aksharyogini font release in Open Font License
by Sudhanwa Jogalekar 01 Nov '14

01 Nov '14

Dear friends, You may be aware that we (my family) have released a font family earlier. Here is some background if you are not aware of it. On the first death Anniversary of Yogini Joglekar(my aunt), our family released AksharYogini (Normal) Font on 1st Nov. 2006. This font is primarily for Marathi language but can also be used for Hindi (for any language using Devanagari). It also has English support. Later on, on the occasion of Gudhipadwa (Chaitra Shuddha 1, 1931; that is 27th March 2009) , we released the additional fonts to complete the "AksharYogini font family". This font family was/is made available on the site http://aksharyogini.sudhanwa.com for free usage/distribution/sharing. Today, on the occasion of Eighth Death Anniversary of Yogini Joglekar, we are now releasing an updated "AksharYogini font". This font is also available on the same website http://aksharyogini.sudhanwa.com This is an updated font and has support for the new (MS Windows) operating systems where the internal mechanism for font rendering is changed. Also, it has additional characters for the current Unicode standard and the Rupee Sign is also included. Most important is the licensing. The new release is under the Open Font License. As such, all Linux distributions will be able to freely use it in their packaging. Please feel free to use, share, distribute the new font. You can download it from http://aksharyogini.sudhanwa.com . Give us feedback on my email id or the official id for the font " aksharyogini at sudhanwa.com " You can also comment on the guestbook on the website. Do share this news and also the font. Wishing you a Very Happy Diwali !! Thanks and regards -Sudhanwa -- ~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~! web: www.sudhanwa.com blog: www.sudhanwa.in Twitter: sudhanwa Check on FB, Linkedin for more.

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WMIN's grant report
by Asaf Bartov 10 May '14

10 May '14

Hello, everyone. Wikimedia India has recently submitted its latest grant report, which we have now reviewed. It is here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/WM_IN/Program_Grant_April_Decemb… We are still awaiting some more concrete information on impact and outcomes of some of the work (see talk page) before we approve the report and close the grant, but I thought it might interest some community members to see, as one additional piece of input, in the context of the other conversations about the future of work in India. Cheers, Asaf -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org

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The story of great Indian WMF outsourcing, few blind people and an elephant
by Ravishankar 04 May '14

04 May '14

Hi, As I engaged in the discussion regarding CIS grant proposal for the last two weeks, I had this recurring theme echoed from various corners. "India is big. India is diverse. India is unlike other countries. So, experiments (call it innovation) need to be done". For the love of Wiki God, may I request all the global people to stop experiementing with India? *People from outside have no clue of India. And the people they hire in India have no clue of the Wikimedia movement. * Ultimately, it has become like few blind people describing an elephant. Heck, all the community members know it is an elephant and know it takes time to grow an elephant. The growth of an elephant can only be on par with the ecosystem within which it is present. No amount of systematic intervention is going to change a donkey into an elephant. I am tired of seeing experiments being done in naive and tiny Indic communities and the "lessons learnt" being implemented in Brazil, Egypt and Arab world. Be it Google or be it WMF or its avatars. May I request that you do your experiments elsewhere for a change and implement things that work for sure in India organically? The reason why English Wikipedia community flourishes in India, Tamil / Bengali / Malayalam communities do well relatively are complete socio economic and political. No amount of intervention is going to change this in other parts of the country. This is like providing rice bags to the poor of the third world without fixing their primary socio political issues. Wikipedia doesn't exist in isolation in a web ecosystem. It is the culmination of scholarly activity of highest order that you can imagine. When languages that are official languages of states and countries, have two decades long web presence, have a thriving local print / visual media and academic network have a problem growing their Wikipedias, I can't understand what the h*ll is being done in Wikipedias that are not even out of incubators, Wikipedias that don't even have a writing system in order. Few years back Google dumped paid translated articles done with the aid machine translation tools in many Indic language communities and sermoned us that these will bring us a community. Now, WMF's programs are sermoning us that their attempt at seeding communities will bring articles for us. I am 100% sure that both approaches are futile. I really miss the once thriving Indian Wiki community that organized the world's biggest Wiki conference. I really miss the cross-wiki activism like https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Tinucherian_and_Shijualex/Wiki_C… I really miss the spirit of the Wiki community getting replaced by confusions brought because of top-down paid interventions. The only hope I have is that at least few mature communities will take stock of the situation, stay autonomous and self-sustaining as they were and continue to enjoy the pleasure of Wiki activity instead of getting drowned in numbers, goals, targets and dream targets. Ravi

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A campaign for stopping donations to Wikimedia
by Ravishankar 03 May '14

03 May '14

Hi, CIS-A2K has officially stated that it won't fix their erratic salary structure. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/… Why should Wikimedia donors pay for the mistakes of the WMF? I am thinking if we should start campaigning asking people not to donate to WMF citing wasteful expenditures like these. Please point if any such campaign already exists. Ravi

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Proposed Wiki Data Marathon program by CIS-A2K
by Ravishankar 02 May '14

02 May '14

Hoi Gerard, ( Context for others: Please see * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_J… * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/… * http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2014-April/011104.html) //If something new has to start and Wikidata is new, then it needs more than just a video or a conference call.// 100s of Wikimedia projects, including many in India, didn't need any kind of intervention. //I gave a presentation to professionals who work in data. It took me an hour to set up the environment with them and for them so that they could start.. We had a meeting for three hours and we scratched the surface enough to make a difference. The fact that we were together ensured good faith and enough understanding.// Are they Wikimedians? It is enough if Wikimedians can make sense of it. If Wikimedians are not able to make sense of it, then we need to improve Wiki Data for the global community too. //I have seen some of the agenda and if only a fifth of what is started pays of it is well worth the investment.// Is it? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Narrowing_Focus_presentation_to_the… talks about reducing focus on events. WMIN's FDC proposal was heavily criticized for a focus on events and its impact was questioned. And yet, we have an event for Wiki Data with a proposed budget as follows: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_J… This is 29.7% of the annual budget of WMIN ! To give a context this is almost 40% of the 2011 Wikimedia India conference !! The single biggest expense in this Wiki Data Marathon program is the cost for resource person which is 4,50,000 INR. So much cost for a resource person for a month hints that this could be someone visiting India from abroad. Any idea who this is ? :) Even University faculties don't understand Wikipedia editor and our markup. So, what do we do? Run marathons like this for all Wikipedia projects? //Just consider what a challenge it is to bring Wikidata to India in a way where it actually makes a difference.// Please provide evidence that this is an India specific problem. When communities don't even get the decade long Wikipedia project, it is only expected that they won't get Wiki Data too. How good is Wiki Data adoption in similar parts of the word and how do you address it? Thanks, Ravi

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Fwd: Re: [Wikipedia-gu] Urdu Wikipedia crosses the 50, 000 mark
by Dhaval S. Vyas 01 May '14

01 May '14

Hi Asaf, Ravi, All, Please see below replies received from Muzammil on queries raised by you. I did not notice that Muzammil is part of CIS. It looks like the Urdu content generation is a task carried out by CIS A2K program under wikimedia grant. Do you (WMF) have any specific budget for such tasks? Gujarati wiki community will love to get paid for content generation. Thanks, Dhaval ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "muzammil" <muzammil(a)cis-india.org> Date: 25 Apr 2014 10:09 Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-gu] Urdu Wikipedia crosses the 50,000 mark To: "Dhaval S. Vyas" <dsvyas(a)gmail.com> Cc: "Wikipedia Gujarati" <wikipedia-gu(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Dear Vyas, > > Good News Muzammil, > > But I have seen questions raised for you regarding this number. People > have found out that till mid February there were only around 27 thousand > pages, how did Urdu wikipedia reach 50,000 mark in 2 months? > > I will have to examine the extent of bot activity. However, a high level of bot activity was also seen on Hindi Wikipedia in the past. > > Someone also found that most of the recent activity is due to Bot > operation and 90% of pages are less than 20kb in size, which means they are > nearly substubs. > > I would rate most as "stubs". But even these can be forerunners for good articles of the future. Regards, Muzammil

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WMF-FDC and A2K discussion minutes
by Nitika Tandon 30 Apr '14

30 Apr '14

Dear All, CIS-A2K had a two day meeting with WMF & FDC visiting team in its Bangalore office on 11th & 12th Feb 2014. The main agenda of the meeting was: Understanding current state of A2K -- basic facts (finance snapshot, organizational context within CIS) Financial review of CIS-A2K, per grant agreement Reflection on past year - successes and challenges in activities Reflection on past year - spending vs. plan Discussion of the preparation for funding via the FDC process; Q&A Reflection on relationship with various communities - successes; obstacles; gaps Discussion of A2K's current resources: staff, funds, engaged volunteers; discuss actual plans; discuss path according to roadmap Meeting minutes can be found here.[1] Thanks Nitika [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O7MkN-h1lQC9oRLwX51Q2wusqBCR19e3i6jI6IW…

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Last day for giving comments on CIS-A2K's grant request
by Ravishankar 30 Apr '14

30 Apr '14

Hi, Just a reminder that the community review period for CIS-A2K's grant request will be over by 30th April., 2014. Today. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/… Ravi

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WikimediaIndia-l April 2014