Dear Indian Wikimedians,
As many of you may have known, one of our fellow Wikimedian was arrested by
Uttar Pradesh Police in October 2020. His name is Siddique Kappan (His
wikimedia username is User:Sidheeq). He is from Kerala, and he was active
in Wikimedia projects (mainly in Malayalam Wikipedia) until his arrest.
Incidently he is a journalist and he was arrested from the home of Hathras
rape and murder victim while reporting the victim Dalit girl's family
members. UP Police has slapped Sedition, Terrorism as well as UAPA charges
against him.
Kappen is diabetic and now COVID positive. He was admitted to hospital only
after he collapsed in the jail cell. With his deteriorating health, it was
accused that Kappan was chained to hospital bed like an animal. Today's
news reports say that he is in critical condition. (You could always google
"Siddique Kappan")
As a tone deaf people I don't expect anything from this mail, I just wish
to share the information.
Stay Inside, Stay Complementary (non-critical), Stay safe, Stay healthy.
User:Praveenp
-------------
Siddique's en.wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sidheeq
Namaskara,
This might be some food for thought, and inputs are welcome. India mailing
list is the largest and most widely used Wikimedia mailing list for the
Indian community. Could we have a practice that all grant requests from the
country (or related to) are informed on the Wikimediaindia-l mailing list?
Whether it is a state-level, project-level, language-level etc, or whether
it is a rapid grant, project grant etc it would be good to see the plan
details on this mailing list in advance. It will ensure greater visibility,
and it will also ensure the community's understanding/knowing of each
other's projects.
If we can have a practice like this, we can inform Wikimedia, or CR team or
relevant support structure(s) as an India community practice.
This post is in my personal capacity. Please assume good faith
Regards,
User:Titodutta
A brief update has been posted while answering a question on Wikimedia-l.
The page is under construction, and an announcement on the India mailing
list will be made separately with details in a few days.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
প্রেরক: Bodhisattwa Mandal <bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com>
Date: বুধ, ২৮ এপ্রিল, ২০২১ তারিখে ১০:১৬ PM টায়
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] COVID-19 second wave and protection of our most
valuable movement asset
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hello Andreas and all,
There is some good news. Wikimedia Foundation Community Resources team has
given permission to CIS-A2K to allot funds to reimburse vaccines, send
COVID protection kits and provide counselling for Wikimedia volunteers in
India. CIS-A2K has consulted Foreign Currency Regulation Act expert lawyers
and got confirmation that the program can be executed as per the law of
India. With this progress, we are now good to go. We had formed a 5-members
committee of physicians (4 of them) from the Indian Wikimedia volunteer
community. They had their first meeting almost an hour ago to decide the
next steps to provide support as quickly and efficiently as possible. The
action points are noted from the meeting and within a few days, we are sure
that we will be able to provide support to the volunteers. A meta page is
also being drafted, which will undergo expansion and modification in the
next few years. The lnk is here -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_support_for_Wikimedians/India
Regards,
Bodhisattwa
On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 at 20:24, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Bodhisattwa,
>
> Could I ask you to please keep us up to date on the further Wikimedia
> response to your request?
>
> I would love to hear about anything good that is happening as a result of
> your having asked here – and if nothing useful is happening, I would love
> to hear about that too – here or by private email, if you prefer.
>
> I am very aware that the WMF ran its first fundraising campaign in India
> this fiscal year, and that one of the fundraising banner messages asked
> people ... "to donate. Show the volunteers who bring you reliable neutral
> information that their work matters."[1]
>
> And as you can read in my other post today, it's not like the Wikimedia
> Foundation is poor.
>
> Be safe.
> Andreas
>
> [1]
> https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/wikipedia-makes-an-awkward-reques…
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Wikimedians,
>
>
>
> We (the community resources team at the Wikimedia Foundation) have been in
> contact with colleagues from the Wikimedia movement in India and wanted to
> share some of the preliminary outcomes of our discussions.
>
>
>
> Firstly, we want to acknowledge the disastrous effect COVID-19 has had on
> Wikimedia communities and its members across the movement. The COVID-19
> pandemic has affected many of us in both direct and indirect ways.
>
>
>
> As has been noted by others on this email chain, we all agree that
> Wikimedia volunteers are the most valuable assets of our movement. As
> mentioned in the previous email, providing insurance support to Wikimedia
> volunteers in India would not have been possible due to regulatory and
> legal challenges. However, we are committed to provide other help and
> service to ensure that the movement is supported.
>
>
>
> As discussed on this chain, we feel that our partners are the best placed
> to understand the needs locally and regionally. We are therefore working
> with colleagues from India directly to provide practical help and support
> to the movement there including access to vaccines, PPE kits, disseminating
> knowledge and fighting misinformation. We will continue to partner with
> them and others to establish criteria in line with our mission to support
> the communities. These are exceptional times, indeed but together we will
> be able to make a difference and support each other.
>
>
>
> For any questions about this initiative please feel free to contact:
> communityresources(a)wikimedia.org
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> On behalf of Community Resources Team,
>
> Tanveer Hasan
>
>
> ಗುರು, ಏಪ್ರಿ 22, 2021 ರಂದು 02:41 ಅಪರಾಹ್ನ ಸಮಯಕ್ಕೆ ರಂದು Bodhisattwa Mandal <
> bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> ಅವರು ಬರೆದಿದ್ದಾರೆ:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > COVID-19 has hit hard in India again making it the leading epicentre of
> > the disease caused by the new mutated strains. The infection and death
> > tolls have reached record high and the health system in different parts
> of
> > the country is on the verge of collapse.
> >
> > Like other common people, many Wikimedians might have lost their jobs
> last
> > year. Like last year, this year too, many volunteers have been infected
> and
> > hospitalised. Some of them have lost their family members, relatives,
> > friends and other dear ones.
> >
> > Volunteer online community is the heart of our movement and every
> > dedicated, experienced and long-term volunteers are our most valuable
> > asset. It is not at all exaggerating to say that many language Wikimedia
> > projects or WikiProjects are dependent completely on one (or two or
> > three...) person's persistence to build it as a tall building from
> scratch
> > and if we lose some of those people, those projects might totally stop
> > forever. There are so many fantastic people in the movement who have been
> > doing incredible work in their volunteer capacity for such a long time
> > (sometimes more than a decade) to make what Wikimedia is today.
> >
> > I would like to urge people with power and money in the movement to find
> a
> > way to protect these assets. We not only cannot afford to lose them, but
> > also need to proactively protect them. Maybe a small step to provide
> > personal or family COVID-19 insurance might help a lot. Maybe sending
> money
> > to buy COVID-19 vaccines might save some of them. Who knows?
> >
> > If we can spend millions of dollars for conferences or a couple of
> hundred
> > thousand dollars to celebrate 20 years of Wikipedia during Wikimania, can
> > we not spend a few thousand dollars to protect at least some of the
> people
> > around the globe to some extent who made it possible to turn Wikipedia
> into
> > its 20th birthday?
> >
> > Disclaimer: I had tried to convince the grants team from my personal
> > capacity last year when COVID-19 was spreading rapidly in India but was
> > denied due to their legal concerns regarding insurance registration as
> > well as settlement and liability issues. Few others tried to convince
> them
> > too but failed. I am reaching out to the community to start a
> conversation
> > this time and find a way together.
> >
> > I am sorry for my long mail. I could not help it.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Bodhisattwa
> _______________________________________________
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Hello Wikimedians,
We are all passing through a very difficult time as the second wave of
COVID-19 has hit hard throughout the country. It is a bitter and hard truth
that many of us have lost our loved ones, close friends, relatives,
neighbours already. Some of us have faced economic difficulties due to loss
of jobs, losses in businesses, huge hospitalization expenses etc.
In the midst of this crisis, a support program has been initiated to
provide some reliefs to our Wikimedia volunteers residing in India. The
program will support the following -
1. Reimbursement of vaccination costs
2. Sending of COVID-19 protection kits
3. Counseling by experts
The support will be provided by CIS-A2K. The vaccination expenses will be
reimbursed from as early as today or tomorrow. The COVID-19 protection kits
will get couriered within a week or more, depending on various logistical
factors. The team will try to support the more vulnerable section of the
community first.
Volunteers are requested to fill up this Google Form to request for support
-
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScYcjEeuT7vUxP3NJg7KfIiZaude9IXLyC…
Please note that all your personal raw information will be kept private and
will not be shared publicly with anybody. Only the persons from CIS-A2K who
will be sending you the support will get access to your information to
process your request. After 120 days of processing, your raw information
will be deleted or aggregated.
If you do not need this kind of support but you know some volunteers from
your community who are in dire need, you can nominate them too through this
form or mail the support team directly. Affiliate contacts and community
leaders are also kindly requested to help identify the volunteers who need
the support the most.
You can find more details about the support program here -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_support_for_Wikimedians/India
The support team would also like to emphasise that,
- there might be some delay in sending support as there are lockdowns in
different parts of the country and there is scarcity or non-availability of
different items in the market,
- there might be some unintentional or unexpected errors from the team,
as this is the first time, this kind of support is being set up for Indian
Wikimedia volunteers and the team does not have prior experience to deal
with this kind of global health situation before,
- the team members are also facing the same critical situation like
everyone else; there are possibilities that they can become sick sooner or
later, which might hamper the support to some extent.
That's why, the team would like to request you to understand the
limitations and assume good faith that any failure to serve sometimes would
be due to situations beyond control.
If you want to contact us directly for any questions, concerns,
suggestions, help etc. you can mail us directly at wmwm(a)cis-india.org .
Let's join hands to overcome this situation.
Regards,
Bodhisattwa
On behalf of COVID-19 support team
The CAC meeting is on 13 May. Please read details below.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
এনার থেকে: Shani Evenstein <shani(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: শুক্র, ৩০ এপ্রিল, ২০২১ ২:১৬ AM
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] First Community Affairs Committee office hour on May
13
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hello, everyone.
TLDR:
The Board of Trustees’ Community Affairs Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…>
(CAC) is hosting its first office hour on May 13, 2021 at 19:00 UTC (check
for your local time <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1620928828>)!
Now in more details:
What are we announcing?
The CAC is a new Board of Trustees
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees>
committee established to assess, explore and address current and future
community-related efforts. The Committee's Charter
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Affairs_Committee_Charter>
lists its full responsibilities, with the first 3 being a priority for this
coming year.
As part of our commitment to foster better communications with the
Wikimedia Movement Community, and based on feedback received from community
members requesting more availability from the Board of Trustees, the CAC
will be hosting its first Office hours.
When & Where?
The Office hours will be held on May 13 2021, at 19:00 UTC (check for your
local time <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1620928828>) via Zoom. At least
3 Trustees, as well as relevant WMF staff will be in attendance. The
session will be streamed live and recorded, so those who cannot participate
live will be able to watch later.
How will it work?
The meeting will last for 60 minutes and an additional 30 minutes of an
“open room”. The first 60 minutes will be divided into 45 minutes of
structured Q & A (based on either updates from the CAC and questions sent
by the community in advance). The final 15 minutes will be in the “ask us
anything” format, with live participation. We will be monitoring live
YouTube, Wikipedia Weekly Facebook group
<https://www.facebook.com/groups/553393111375191> and the Wikimedia General
Chat Telegram group <https://t.me/WikimediaGeneral> and the talk page on
Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…>.
The structure is meant to enable the CAC to not only update the community
on current matters the Board is working on, but also hear directly from the
community, which will help inform the Committee’s future work.
Setting the agenda with your Questions
In order to be as efficient as possible, and since we anticipate that some
questions will require answers from WMF Staff, we are encouraging community
members to send questions in advance. Please send all questions to
askcac(a)wikimedia.org, by Friday, May 7th (midnight, whatever time zone you
may be in). The office hour agenda will be based on the main topics related
to the questions received. We will share this agenda on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…>
on May 12, including final names of Trustees in attendance.
How to register?
For security reasons and specifically to avoid Zoombombing
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoombombing>, we will be sending the Zoom
link only to people who have registered in advance close to the meeting. In
order to register, please send an email to askcac(a)wikimedia.org, indicating
your name, username, affiliation if you have any. The title should be:
“Registration for the May 13th CAC Office Hours”.
Please note --
-
This is the first time that the Board is attempting something of the
sort. This is an experiment. We’ll see how it goes - how many people are
interested in attending, timing, translation needs etc -- and make
decisions about future meetings / changes to format accordingly.
-
The session will be moderated based on the Universal Code of Conduct
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct>
-
Universally blocked users will not be allowed in the room, but can still
participate by watching live and sending questions in real-time.
Please help us spread the word by sharing this message with your local /
online communities.
Hoping to see as many of you as possible,
Shani Evenstein Sigalov
Chair, Community Affairs Committee
Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Foundation.
Shani Evenstein Sigalov
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/shani-evenstein-sigalov/>
Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
_______________________________________________
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Sunday's (April 25, 2020) Wikipedia Weekends* session organized by the
Wikimedians of Goa User Group (WGUG) was a good one, with fair
participation, and quite a few first-time volunteers participating. We
could try to keep the momentum on this interesting series of events. May I
suggest some suitable topics which volunteers could consider taking up?
* Photography in the Goa I knew (1960s-1980s): Lui Godinho
* Konkani Wiktionary: an overview: Denzil Simoes
* Konkani Wikipedia, the road ahead: Denzil-Fr Luis & team
* Villages of Bardez: what needs to be done: group discussion
* Villages of Ponda: the road ahead
* Women on the Wikipedia: Aliya, group discussion
* Kannada-script Konkani issues on the Wikipedia; Anup Shanbhag
* Building Goa-related photo content on the Wikimedia commons
* Wikipedia in Goa's non-English, non-Konkani languages (M, H, P...)
* Getting started on the Wikipedia (talk for newbies)
* Making small edits on the Wikipedia (practical session)
* Where I got stuck on the Wikipedia (Q&A session), etc.
* Suggest your topic here... and resubmit the list
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/ FN * फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا +91-9822122436
_/ See a different Goa here, via
_/ https://youtube.com/c/frederickfnnoronha
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Are you fluent in more than one language? Are you learning some more
languages? Join this evening's webinar on Wikipedia's Content Translation
tool [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation] Today SUNDAY
APRIL 25, 2021 from 7-8 pm. Contact by WhatsApp 9822122436 with JOIN
TRANSLATION SESSION in your message. Link for this session
https://meet.google.com/dvy-yfqo-mhg
Frederick Noronha
Wikipedians of Goa User Group
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/ FN * फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا +91-9822122436
_/ See a different Goa here, via
_/ https://youtube.com/c/frederickfnnoronha
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Dear Wikimedians and friends,
I hope everyone is doing well. I am forwarding this email from the
education mailing list. We are hosting a virtual meeting for our community
members involved in Wikimedia education projects, and based in the South
Asia region on 30th April at 15:00 IST. I understand the challenges that
India and the entire region are currently going through. I share my
thoughts and prayers with you all, and I hope this shall pass soon.
While we hope to see some of you in the meeting, we will also record the
meeting for anyone who will not be able to attend. This will be a space to
identify the challenges and collaboration opportunities in the region. You
can find more details here:
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/About/Office_Hours/Regional_M….
Take care & Stay safe!
*Sailesh Patnaik *"*ଶୈଳେଶ ପଟ୍ଟନାୟକ**"*
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Sailesh Patnaik <spatnaik(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 9:34 PM
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Join us for the South Asia regional education meeting
To: Wikimedia Education <education(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, <
wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Dear Wikimedians,
I am writing this email to invite you all to the third regional education
meeting[1]. This month we are meeting with our community members based in
the South Asia region[2]. You can use these regional office hours as an
opportunity to learn and share your projects, tools, or ideas with the
education community from the region.
These regional education meetings are planned by the community specialists
of the EduWiki Outreach Collaborators (EWOC)[3] and the Education team. We
are using this as an opportunity to strengthen the EduWiki network, explore
collaboration opportunities, and identify common practices or challenges
that are faced by our community members in different regions of the world.
We are launching these regional office hours as a pilot initiative to
complement our general monthly office hours[4], we encourage you to
participate, share your ideas, and help this become a fully community-led
initiative.
Our first South Asia regional education meeting will take place on *30th
April 2021 at **9:30 UTC*, (3:00 PM IST, Colombo Time, 3:30 PM Dhaka Time,
3:15 PM Kathmandu Time), it will be led by Md. Galib, a member of Wikimedia
Bangladesh, and EWOC community specialist for the region. *If you want to
volunteer to interpret this meeting for your community members in a local
language, please reach out to me.*
At this South Asia regional education meeting, we will hear from:
-
Challenges with education in Covid 19: Is there any way to overcome?,
Prof. Mostafa Azad, Country representative of CC Bangladesh, Dean, School
of Business, Bangladesh Open University
-
Education initiatives by Punjabi Wikimedians UG, Dr. Manavpreet Kaur
-
State of Education projects by Karavali Wikimedians UG, Dr. U. B.
Pavanaja
If you have other ideas, topics, or questions you want to ask, you can add
them to the agenda here[5]. We will try to answer them during the meeting.
We are looking forward to seeing you there!
Best!
Md. Galib, EWOC community specialist team, Sailesh, and Education team
[1]
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/About/Office_Hours/Regional_M…
[2]
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/About/Office_Hours/Regional_M…
[3]
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/EduWiki_Outreach_Collaborators
[4] https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/About/Office_Hours
[5]
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/About/Office_Hours/Regional_M…
--
Sailesh Patnaik (He/Him)
Program Associate, Education
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
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