Dear all ,
Its claimed here
<https://www.facebook.com/airnewsalerts/photos/a.262571017217636.1073741824.…>
that , GoI is planning to // soon make available valuable old recordings,
many of the which rare ones with Doordarshan and All India Radio, on mobile
handsets through a special application.// Can some one from the chapter and
also volunteers try to make inroads and put out a consistent effort to
make them under CC complaint license .
-Sibi
Hi,
Tamil Development Board (an autonomous institution under Government of
Tamilnadu) releases its Encyclopedia (10 volumes, 7407 pages) and
Children's Encyclopedia (10 volumes, 969 pages) under Creative Commons
license. Tamil Wikipedians lead by Prof. C. R. Selvakumar and Prof. P. R.
Nakkeeran, (Director, Tamil Virtual Academy) spearheaded this initiative
coinciding with Tamil Wikipedia's 10 years celebrations.
An official confirmation (in Tamil) can be seen at
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Letter_from_Tamil_Devel…
Scanned copies of these works are already available at
http://tamilvu.org/library/kulandaikal/lku00/html/lku00ind.htm
At Tamil Wikipedia, we are discussing how we can get this content typed and
transferred to WikiSource. Doing so can be a good model to encourage more
such works to be released in public domain.
Following are two options I can think of:
1. Volunteers type all the content. Besides taking years to complete, this
won't do justice for the value of time of volunteers who can do more
valuable work than typing mechanically.
A program like IT@School present in Kerala or a contest can encourage more
people to join this effort but not all communities can't emulate this model
successfully.
2. Request WMF to give a grant to the owner of the content and let them
hand over the typed content to Wikisource volunteers who will upload and
wikify the content.
This will ensure maintaining the spirit of volunteerism and yet getting the
work done in a professional and time bound manner.
Numerous works in Wikisource are such ready made content uploaded already
in the web through other projects like Project Gutenberg.
If providing grants to non-Wikimedia organizations is an issue, a grant
towards this can be given to community / chapter who will then outsource
the typing work.
I welcome community's input on any other model for this as India has vast
amount of literature and works like this are waiting to be transfered to
Wikisource. This is one area where we can add lot of content to Wiki
projects at once.
Ravi
Arun,
The Chapter is a legally recognised affiliate of the Chapter. WMF User Groups are also defined to be something like affiliates designed to share similar arrangements to what the Chapter has. As a gesture, the Affiliations Committee does consult the Chapter as the official affiliate in the locale.
At the time, I believe the argument was that the Community would be better served by one dedicated organisation. The Chapter had a similar entity since 2010 called the Special Interest Group to work in a similar way but with the affiliations committee work being done by the Chapter.
Vishwa's email seems to suggest the Chapter Exec Comm are now more open to the possibility of having WMF User Groups.
Warm regards,
Pradeep
Sent from my iPhone
> On 06-Sep-2014, at 20:33, Arun Ganesh <arun.planemad(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>> On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 9:38 AM, Pradeep Mohandas <pradeep.mohandas(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> It is perhaps worth considering a format of having multiple user groups model in India rather than having one central Wikimedia India Chapter.
>
> About a year ago there was some interest in creating a Mediawiki India group but met with opposition from the chapter.
>
> Is there currently a restriction on creating user groups independent of the chapter? It would be good to know what this is?
> Do I need permission from the chapter to start a Wikipedia editors club in my neighbourhood?
>
>
>> I do not think that the Chapter in its current form is representative of the Wikimedia Community in India. I have asked the Chapter to hold membership drives in other language wikis and other regions but this does not seem to have taken off. It has been 4 years since the Chapter was formed.
>>
>> The downside would be that several groups will have to interact with state governments in their respective states but I think this will make them understand and respect the Executive Committee's work more.
>>
>> I think this is worth considering in the present scenario.
>>
>> Warm regards,
>> Pradeep Mohandas
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
> Arun Ganesh
> (planemad)
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Dear EC, Members of the Chapter,
I am not pleased with the way things are working out right now. The EC
passed a resolution to appoint a senior Indic language Wikipedian as the
Program Director on the recommendation of a four member committee
consisting of Jayanta, Sudhanwa, Moksh, and Naveen for a probation period
of three months, starting on the 1st of September 2014. Subsequently, the
newly reorganised EC has done every bit to prevent the appointment of said
person. It is with extreme displeasure that I have to state that this kind
of nepotism at the hands of vested interests prevents me from working well.
Due to this, I am resigning as an member of the Executive Committee with
immediate effect.
--
Srikanth Ramakrishnan
Treasurer,
Wikimedia Chapter [India]
Donate to the Wikimedia India Chapter today
<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Donations>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tilman Bayer <tbayer(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 5:24 AM
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia
Commons celebrates its 10th anniversary
To: press-release <press-release(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
(This press release is also available online here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Commons_celeb…
)
Wikimedia Commons celebrates its 10th anniversary
- *22 million+ images make Wikimedia Commons world’s largest freely
licensed educational media repository.*
(San Francisco, USA) September 5, 2014 -- This Sunday marks the 10th
anniversary of Wikimedia Commons
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>. Its creation was officially
announced on September 7, 2004.
More than 22 million media files have been uploaded by the Wikimedia
volunteer community over the decade since Commons came into being. The
Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to have a dedicated community of
creators and institutions who continue to share their images and other
media so that the project has flourished and will continue to thrive.
Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Lila Tretikov said: “Many people
don’t know that the incredible, freely-licensed images that illustrate
Wikipedia are curated and maintained by the volunteer community of
Wikimedia Commons editors. Wikimedia Commons is the visual engine of the
Wikimedia projects, and we look forward to its next decade of
contributions, collaboration, and sharing.”
In the past ten years, creators have contributed to Commons in a variety of
ways, including the annual Wiki Loves Monuments contest, which is currently
inviting submissions through the end of September. The Guinness Book of
World Records named Wiki Loves Monuments the largest photo contest in the
world, and it has inspired more 900,000 image uploads since 2010.
On this occasion we also celebrate the partnerships with dozens of cultural
institutions (GLAM) from around the world that have donated portions of
their collections. Their contributions have allowed Wikimedia Commons to
become a vital resource for educational and historical content, and ensured
the increasing depth and richness of the illustrations for articles on
Wikipedia.
The Foundation recognizes the vibrant Wikimedia Commons community, which is
responsible for increasing the availability of freely licensed images and
information to the public. The Commons community takes its role as a
guardian of the rights of creators extremely seriously, working diligently
to confirm authorship and licensing status of the media uploaded to
Commons. This work is reflected in the low number of DMCA takedown requests
received by the Wikimedia Foundation every year.
Erik Moeller, then a volunteer Wikimedian, first proposed the Commons in
March 2004 as a common repository for the images that Wikipedians had begun
uploading to illustrate the free online encyclopedia’s growing collection
of articles. Today, Moeller is the Wikimedia Foundation’s Deputy Director
and VP of Engineering, and Commons is the world’s largest repository of
freely licensed educational media on the internet.
“The Wikimedia Commons community is the reason these freely-licensed images
exist for everyone to enjoy." said Moeller. “Our next steps are to prepare
Wikimedia Commons for the future, including support for rich, structured
metadata; a massively improved user experience for uploading media; better
tools for editing media content through the web; and better support for
video. The first decade was just the beginning.”
The Foundation is thrilled to be celebrating these and many more
achievements of the project’s first decade.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
https://wikimediafoundation.orghttps://blog.wikimedia.org/
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
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languages, Wikipedia contains more than 32 million articles contributed by
a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San
Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3)
charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
Wikimedia Foundation Press Contact:
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+1 415-839-6885 ext 6633kmaher[image: @]wikimedia.org
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I think this may have reached the Indian list.
I'm hoping some of you bright ones may have some ideas and be part of this
round.
Forwarded Message:
Greetings! The Wikimedia Foundation Individual Engagement Grants program is
accepting proposals for funding new experiments from September 1st to 30th.
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG>
Your idea can improve Wikimedia projects by building a new tool or gadget,
organizing a better process on your wiki, conducting research on an
important issue, or providing other support for community-building. Whether
you need $200 or $30,000 USD, Individual Engagement Grants can cover your
own project development time in addition to funding for a team to help you.
The program has a flexible schedule and reporting structure, and
Grantmaking staff are there to support you through all stages of the
process.
Do you have have a good idea, but you are worried that it isn’t developed
enough for a grant? Put it into the IdeaLab, where volunteers and staff
can give you advice and guidance on how to bring it to life. <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab> Also, IEG will be hosting
three Hangout Sessions for real-time discussions to help you make your
proposal better - the first will happen on September 16th. <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Events#Upcoming_events>
For inspiration, you can read more about past projects that received
funding<https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/individual-engagement-grants/> or
review open proposals <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-reviewing>. We are excited
to see some of the new ways your grant ideas can support our community and
make an impact on the future of Wikimedia projects.
Submit your proposal in September!
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-apply>
Warm regards,
Ocaasi and the IEG Committee
--
Regards,
Srikanth Ramakrishnan,
What goes around, may not necessarily come around, it may simply bounce
back.
Please sign this petition for Volvo buses in Coimbatore:
https://www.change.org/en-IN/petitions/the-transport-minister-tamil-nadu-in…
Dear Members,
You are all aware that three people have tendered their resignation from
the Executive Council of the Chapter so far. With the AGM and elections
round the corner, these sudden developments have affected the scheduling of
the AGM and elections as planned. Nevertheless, we are co-opting some
members to fill the vacancies and push for the scheduling of elections and
the AGM at the earliest.
Srikanth is mistaken in believing the reconstituted EC has vested interests
and indulging in nepotism. Since a few decisions have been taken without
adequate internal consultations, and the members who took these decisions
have relinquished their roles immediately after, we have to consider the
decisions as hurried. Since a major change in EC is due after the
elections, we feel that as an interim EC, we should not take some critical
long term decisions. In the process of upholding democratic practices and
setting up healthy precedences, we are leaving this decision on
appointments to the EC to be newly elected.
We value the privacy of the individual referred indirectly here, and the
individual also knows our position. We will be engaging him as a consultant
in the interim phase. Appropriate announcement will follow.
Please be assured that our desire is to uphold healthy processes and
strengthen the movement. We request every body who has misgivings to
believe in democracy and co-operate.
Regards,
Jayanta Nath
President,
Wikimedia Chapter
Dear Wikimedians,
Please see the below call for proposals for IEG.
Best,
Vishnu
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Siko Bouterse <sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Tuesday, 2 September 2014
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Open call for Individual Engagement Grant proposals
To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Greetings! The Wikimedia Foundation Individual Engagement Grants program is
accepting proposals for funding new experiments from September 1st to 30th.
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG>
Your idea can improve Wikimedia projects by building a new tool or gadget,
organizing a better process on your wiki, conducting research on an
important issue, or providing other support for community-building. Whether
you need $200 or $30,000 USD, Individual Engagement Grants can cover your
own project development time in addition to funding for a team to help you.
The program has a flexible schedule and reporting structure, and
Grantmaking staff are there to support you through all stages of the
process.
Do you have have a good idea, but you are worried that it isn’t developed
enough for a grant? Put it into the IdeaLab, where volunteers and staff
can give you advice and guidance on how to bring it to life. <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab> Also, IEG will be hosting
three Hangout Sessions for real-time discussions to help you make your
proposal better - the first will happen on September 16th. <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Events#Upcoming_events>
For inspiration, you can read more about past projects <
https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/individual-engagement-grants/> that received
funding or review open proposals <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-reviewing>. We are excited
to see some of the new ways your grant ideas can support our community and
make an impact on the future of Wikimedia projects.
Submit your proposal in September! <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-apply>
Warm regards,
Siko
--
Siko Bouterse
Head of Individual Grants
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. *
*Donate <https://donate.wikimedia.org> or click the "edit" button today,
and help us make it a reality!*
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