Bengaluru
March 4, 2015
A Joint statement on collaboration between WMIN and CIS-A2K
Representatives from WMIN and CIS-A2K met during the Train the Trainer
Workshop that was held in Bengaluru on February 28, 2015.
The meeting was productive and paves the way for a long lasting partnership
between the two organizations. It was decided in the meeting that WMIN and
CIS-A2K teams shall work closely and contribute to each other’s activities
and growth. Following are the points towards collaborative engagement that
WMIN and CIS-A2K will work towards:
-
CIS-A2K and WMIN will revive quarterly team hangouts to enable better
communication and coordination between them. The meeting that happened on
February 28th, 2015 is the first in this series of regular meetings planned.
-
As a first step to signal the collaborative nature of WMIN and CIS-A2K,
we will sign a joint MoU with a leading academic institution that will
provide access to many language computing tools including OCR. We are
already at an advanced stage of discussion.
-
WMIN will work together with CIS-A2K for conducting the proposed MediaWiki
TTT in May 2015.
-
Setting up a public calendar to keep all communities, CIS-A2K and WMIN
informed about various movement related activities and events.
-
A strategy will be put in place to revive the Bengaluru Wiki Community
meetups which were very active in the past. This will be a community led
initiative facilitated by CIS-A2K and WMIN.
-
The synergy between the two organizations will also extend beyond
Wikimedia domain. For example, close coordination will be seen in Creative
Commons India related activities.
-
CIS-A2K team will be working closely with the WMIN team towards
developing its next round of FDC proposal.
-
Both CIS-A2K and WMIN acknowledge the role of India Community
Consultation 2014 facilitated by WMF that paved the way for better
understanding between the organizations.
We plan to keep the community updated about the progress on these
agreements. We will also inform when new activities are planned.
We kindly request the community to extend their support for these
initiatives.
Thanks.
Released on behalf of Wikimedia India and CIS-A2K.
--
Regards,
Yohann Thomas
Executive Committee Member
Wikimedia India
Dear all,
March is women's history month, and to celebrate, Wikimedians are writing
articles which are of importance to women. The co-ordination page on meta
can be found here [1]. The celebration has started on March 1 and will
continue until March 31. The event is being supported by CIS-A2K and
Wikimedia India.
I am writing to invite all Wikimedians to participate in the online and
offline events happening in connection with Wikiwomen's History Month. The
list of events can be found here [2]. More events are being planned, so
please visit this page occasionally to know the latest updates! If you are
planning an event in your locality, do remember to add the event to page
[2].
The events are happening in Indic languages and English. As of now, we have
project pages in seven languages. If your language is there in the list of
languages here [3], please sign up on the respective project page and join
us in our effort to bridge the gender gap on Wikipedia. If your language is
not on this list, please consider creating one on your own!
The stats of the en event can be found on our website :
http://2015.wikiwomen.in/ We need help in creating the statboard for all
participating languages. Please write to User: Jeph Paul
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jeph_paul> if you are interested in
volunteering to do this.
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_History_Month,_India-2015
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_History_Month,_India-2015/Events
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_History_Month,_India-2015/To_do_l…
If you have any questions, please contact me or one of the organizers.
--
Netha Hussain
Student of Medicine and Surgery
Govt. Medical College, Kozhikode
Blogs :
*nethahussain.blogspot.com
<http://nethahussain.blogspot.com>swethaambari.wordpress.com
<http://swethaambari.wordpress.com>*
Dear Wikimedians,
This is to bring to your notice the proposed change in leadership of the
CIS-A2K Program. The current Program Director, T. Vishnu Vardhan will be
transitioning by June 2015, due to health and personal concerns.
As many of you know, Vishnu has led the A2K Programme since February
2013. We at CIS are working with Vishnu and the rest of the A2K team to
ensure smooth transition so that the momentum of the A2K program does
not lose pace.
We will soon be putting out an Advertisement for the next CIS-A2K
Program Director and will involve the community members and the WMIN in
the selection process.
Best regards,
--
Subhashish Panigrahi
Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K)
Centre for Internet and Society
@psubhashish / https://cis-india.org
Dear Wikimedians all over the world,
One of our stalwarts at ml Wikimedia community, Wikiuser:BabuG
<https://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Babug> (
https://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Babug) expired yesterday night.
Despite having paralyzed due to a severe stroke and severely affected by
several subsequent health problems, he was guided to Wikipedia by his son,
Dr. Ajay, another prominent Malayalam Wikipedian, as a possible remedy to
escape perpetual loneliness.
His real world name was G. Balachandran.He was born on 14th October 1938 in
a small village off North Parur, Ernakulam District, Kerala, the
Southernmost state of India.He joined the Armed Forces Engineering College
and then continued to serve the Indian Armed forces for long many years.
He started contributing to Wikimedia, particularly to Malayalam Wikipedia,
in the year 2008.
His initial contributions to Malayalam Wikipedia were based upon a
pulp-converted digital Encyclopedia, released by the Government through
GFDL licence then. He continued to create even more full-featured articles
on his own, later. By 2014 October 18 - the day he edited last in
Wikipedia- he had 1935 full-blown articles initiated and expanded by
himself in ml.wikipedia.org. Besides, he also contributed more than 350
images to Wikimedia commons and a handsome amount of contributions to
Wikisource, Wikidata and Wiktionary.
He always attributed his renewed energy and life's aspirations to the
Wikimedia mission, for having returned to a meaningful life after a 20-year
long and frustrating solitude while constrained to an immobile chair. Ever
since 2008, he stood up and started walking and moving around. His was an
extreme example for us in Malayalam WP to showcase how Wikipedia can change
lives.
In almost all our Wikipedia Outreach sessions, we utilized this great
example to motivate and excite the newcomers to WP.
Tory Read mentioned about BabuG thus, in a document
<http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/india-chronicles.pdf>, a review
on the state of Indian Wikimedia Communities, in 2011:
G. Balachandran, a septuagenarian who lives outside of Ernakulum in Kerala
> state, said that working on Malayalam Wikipedia helped him recover after a
> stroke left him paralyzed. “He’s much sharper now,” said his wife Jagadamma
> K. “He’s made a lot of new friends, and that’s been good for his health.”
For us in Malayalam Wikipedia, today is a black day, for having lost a
great beacon on our voyage to ultimate openness and freedom in knowledge
and wisdom.
Yet, we feel, BabuG has made his life stamped immortal for ever and has
shown us the pathway we should follow in continuing our humble
contributions to the ultimate cause of mankind.
-ViswaPrabha
(On behalf of Malayalam Wikimedia Community)
http://ml.wikipedia.org
Hi all ,
This is to bring to the attention of the larger Wikimedia Community about
concerns regarding Abhishek Surywanshi’s ( User profile -
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ACentralAuth&target=Abh…
) wikimedia activities and use of movement funds.
While edit counts are not the only way to assess the value of a contributor
and people are encourage to do outreach, I am seeing a clear pattern that
he has been *very active consistently only in offline activities that
involve large scale funds.*
*History of programs or events where he has used or applied to use movement
funds:*
1)A Travel and Participation grant request for travel to US from India for
Wikimedia Outreach in US -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:TPS/AbhiSuryawanshi/NASA_LARSS_…
. The community and EC members of Wikimedia India disapproved of this grant
request.
2)Wikipedia Summit Pune -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Summit_Pune . How much
was spent and how? Where is the expenses report? Following failure to abide
by terms regarding financial transactions, *Wikimedia India banned
supporting him financially and passed a resolution regarding this.* ( As
per http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:Grants/WikiConnect_Pilot_-_January_2015 )
3)Various (mostly flight) travel and stay to many different conferences /
meetups across India in the recent past. Community approval for these are
not clearly seen.
*Swatantra conference 2014
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Requests/Swatantr…
(On behalf of which community?)
*India Community Consultation 201 4 -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Community_Consultation_2014#Hindi
(Self-nomination (?) on behalf of Hindi Community where he has made 425
edits.
Bengali Wikipedia 10 years celebration in Kolkatta during Jan 2015 (On
behalf of which community?)
Following are some of his proposed activities that will need a grant made
in near future:
1)Wikipedia Summit India in Pune during 2015 -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/WikipediaSummitIndia
2)Travel and participation grant request for 1125 US dollars for round trip
travel from Pune to United States for conducting Indic outreach in United
states -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Harvard_India_Conference_and_Wik…
3)WikiConnect - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiConnect - No
idea about the budget. The pilot he is doing in Nashik *needs 6100 INR for
a cake itself *and reimbursement for 15 days of his stay and food.
4)Further outreach in US -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Indic_Language_Wikipedia_Out…
Some of the concerns:
1.He is using and proposes to keep using movement funds in large scale with
questionable impact which are against the learnings already documented at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation
2.He is *using fictitious and misleading titles like Ambassador, Wikipedia*
to establish non-transparent relationships with numerous organizations in
and outside India -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiConnect/Pilot_Project#mediaview…
. This has the risk of damaging goodwill and brand name for Wikipedia.
4)When a current GAC member and former Wikimedia India EC member seeks
details regarding his grant request and reminds the current EC about the
ban, he is hinting legal action against chapter (As per
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:Grants/WikiConnect_Pilot_-_January_2015 )
As a community member, I request the funding agencies in the movement to
take stock of this situation and implement intense scrutiny for funding
requests with proper evaluation of program design and due process for
having community approval by experienced Wikimedians.
Please donot proceed ahead without community discussion or approval.
Executive decisions circumventing community approval will never help the
movement.
-Sibi Kanagaraj
User:Commons Sibi (
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ACentralAuth&target=Com…
)
Please see the below email about free access to online academic resources.
Do encourage deserving Wikimedians, whom you know, to apply.
Best,
Vishnu
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jake Orlowitz <jorlowitz(a)gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] New Free Research Accounts via the Wikipedia Library
To: "wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org" <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc: "wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org" <
wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
wikimediareference-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org,
Wikimedia & Libraries <libraries(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Open Access
discussions <openaccess(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi!
The Wikipedia Library has new, free research donations available:
Project MUSE (humanities and social science books and journals): <
http://enwp.org/WP:Project_MUSE>
DynaMed (clinical reference for medical topics):
<http://enwp.org/WP:DynaMed>
Royal Pharmaceutical Society (pharmaceutical information and practice
resources):
<http://enwp.org/WP:RPharmS>
Women Writers Online (digital humanities database focused on women's
literature): <http://enwp.org/WP:Women_Writers_Online>
Newspapers.com (American newspapers database w/ open access tools): <
http://enwp.org/WP:Newspapers.com>
And many other partnerships with accounts available are listed at: <
http://enwp.org/WP:TWL/Journals>
Do better research and help expand the use of high-quality references
across Wikipedia projects. Sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Hi Sibi,
If your are talking about Wikimedia India chapter member list, your message
already there, please check it
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/wmin-members
If your are talking about Wikimedia India Community list, you can check the
moderator ( hpnadig at gmail.com, anirudhsbh at gmail.com, prashanth.ns at
gmail.com, srik.lak at gmail.com
<wikimediaindia-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org>) and ask them.
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Regards,
Jayanta
On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 7:23 PM, sibi kanagaraj <civil.sibi1(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Not sure , who is moderating the general Indian Community Mailing list .
>
> Please approve the mail .
>
> -Sibi
>
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 4:20 PM, sibi kanagaraj <civil.sibi1(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi all ,
>>
>> This is to bring to the attention of the larger Wikimedia Community about
>> concerns regarding Abhishek Surywanshi’s ( User profile -
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ACentralAuth&target=Abh…
>> ) wikimedia activities and use of movement funds.
>>
>> While edit counts are not the only way to assess the value of a
>> contributor and people are encourage to do outreach, I am seeing a clear
>> pattern that he has been *very active consistently only in offline
>> activities that involve large scale funds.*
>>
>> *History of programs or events where he has used or applied to use
>> movement funds:*
>>
>> 1)A Travel and Participation grant request for travel to US from India
>> for Wikimedia Outreach in US -
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:TPS/AbhiSuryawanshi/NASA_LARSS_…
>> . The community and EC members of Wikimedia India disapproved of this grant
>> request.
>>
>> 2)Wikipedia Summit Pune -
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Summit_Pune . How much
>> was spent and how? Where is the expenses report? Following failure to abide
>> by terms regarding financial transactions, *Wikimedia India banned
>> supporting him financially and passed a resolution regarding this.* ( As
>> per http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:Grants/WikiConnect_Pilot_-_January_2015
>> )
>>
>> 3)Various (mostly flight) travel and stay to many different conferences /
>> meetups across India in the recent past. Community approval for these are
>> not clearly seen.
>> *Swatantra conference 2014
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Requests/Swatantr…
>> (On behalf of which community?)
>> *India Community Consultation 201 4 -
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Community_Consultation_2014#Hindi
>> (Self-nomination (?) on behalf of Hindi Community where he has made 425
>> edits.
>> Bengali Wikipedia 10 years celebration in Kolkatta during Jan 2015 (On
>> behalf of which community?)
>>
>>
>> Following are some of his proposed activities that will need a grant
>> made in near future:
>>
>> 1)Wikipedia Summit India in Pune during 2015 -
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/WikipediaSummitIndia
>>
>> 2)Travel and participation grant request for 1125 US dollars for round
>> trip travel from Pune to United States for conducting Indic outreach in
>> United states -
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Harvard_India_Conference_and_Wik…
>>
>> 3)WikiConnect - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiConnect - No
>> idea about the budget. The pilot he is doing in Nashik *needs 6100 INR
>> for a cake itself *and reimbursement for 15 days of his stay and food.
>>
>> 4)Further outreach in US -
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Indic_Language_Wikipedia_Out…
>>
>>
>> Some of the concerns:
>>
>> 1.He is using and proposes to keep using movement funds in large scale
>> with questionable impact which are against the learnings already documented
>> at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation
>>
>> 2.He is *using fictitious and misleading titles like Ambassador,
>> Wikipedia* to establish non-transparent relationships with numerous
>> organizations in and outside India - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiConnect/Pilot_Project#mediaview…
>> . This has the risk of damaging goodwill and brand name for Wikipedia.
>>
>> 4)When a current GAC member and former Wikimedia India EC member seeks
>> details regarding his grant request and reminds the current EC about the
>> ban, he is hinting legal action against chapter (As per
>> http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:Grants/WikiConnect_Pilot_-_January_2015 )
>>
>> As a community member, I request the funding agencies in the movement to
>> take stock of this situation and implement intense scrutiny for funding
>> requests with proper evaluation of program design and due process for
>> having community approval by experienced Wikimedians.
>>
>> Please donot proceed ahead without community discussion or approval.
>>
>> Executive decisions circumventing community approval will never help the
>> movement.
>>
>>
>> -Sibi Kanagaraj
>> User:Commons Sibi ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ACentralAuth&target=Com…
>> )
>>
>>
>>
> --
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> with no direct control over the Wikipedia project and other websites hosted
> by the Wikimedia Foundation, USA.
>
> This mail is sent to the members of the Chapter as part of the official
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