Hi,

This is a report on Symposium on Wikipedia and also on the launch of Marathi Wikisource. Sorry for the delay in sending the report. We were trying to get the videos and some other URLs from the media. Somehow, the videos are still not available and there is no point in waiting further. So, here it is.

On the occasion of "Marathi Bhasha Divas” which was on 27th February, a symposium on "Wikipedia" was conducted on 25th February. The program was conducted by jointly by Journalism Department, Ranade Institute, Pune University, Pune Union of Working Journalists along with Pune Community of the Wikimedia India Chapter.

Aim of symposium: Wikipedia has emerged as a major source of authentic information and its versions in different languages (including Marathi) are also getting popular. Journalism students and journalists should not remain only consumers of this huge and resourceful information, but they should also contribute to it as writers and editors. This symposium aims to acquaint the participants with various aspects of Marathi Wikipedia and Marathi Wikisrot.

Marathi Wikisource (mr.wikisource.org) was also launched during the event. Marathi community volunteers were working for launching the Wikisource website for a long time. Well-known theatre and film personality "Amol Palekar" was the "Chief Guest" for the program.

The event was organised in the auditorium of Pune Union of Working Journalists at Patrakar Bhavan, Navi Peth, Pune. About 150 people attended the same. Participants were mainly students of Journalism and mass communication departments from various colleges under Pune University, working journalists, students of some other departments and a lot of media people and the active Wikipedians from Pune. The program started at about 2:15 pm and ended at about 5:30 pm. The program started with the welcome message by Dr. Ujjwala Barve who is the Head of the department. Initial session on “Introduction to Wikipedia” was done by Sudhanwa Jogalekar. He gave an overview of Wikipedia, related projects and also talked about the India Chapter activities. At the end of his session, there were some interesting questions about the business model and funding of Wikipedia activities.

Next session was done by Rahul Deshmukh who gave introduction to Marathi Wikipedia. Rahul came from Mumbai just for this program!!! He explained the journey so far and the road map ahead. His session was also ended with some typical “Puneri” questions like why you do not give various Government forms on wikipedia?

Futher to this, Mandar Kulkarni gave a talk on Marathi Wikisource. He explained the concept of Marathi Wikisource in details and the difference between Wikisource and Wikipedia. He also explained what content can be added and what not. This was followed by Launch of “Marathi Wikisrot” website by Amol Palekarji.

After the launch, Amol Palekar shared his thought on Wikipedia and Wikisource. It was nice to know the views from a celebrity and how they see the content about themselves on Wikipedia. He also promised to help in adding the information regarding Marathi Theature in Marathi Wikipedia and Marathi Wikisource. Marathi theatre has a long history of about 150 years and this could be some great project likely to come up soon!!

The last and most. important session was taken care by Mahitgar and he took the audience through the various editing practices of Marathi Wikipedia.. He also showed the article of Amol Palekar and tried to edit the same in front of him. He also informed him that after the announcement of the this program, many Wikipedians started editing Amol Palekar’s article in Marathi and English Wikipedia and it has taken fairly a good shape now.

This symposium has really helped to make the wikipedians come together and share their views. It also gave a nice trigger for the journalism students and also the working journalists to work on Wikipedia and Wikisource.

The event was very well covered by Marathi print and electronic media. Video coverage by SAAM TV channel was shown on 25th itself and IBNLokmat channel gave coverage for almost all the day on 26 and also partially on 27th. News was published about the event in Daily Sakal, Maharashtra times and some other papers too.

Here are some URLs for the pictures and media coverage.

Photos available here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Marathi_Wikisrot_Launch

Recording of IBNLokmat channel here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvRjALxKwho

Coverage in Maharatratimes here: http://maharashtratimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/12037016.cms Coverage in Sakal here: http://72.78.249.107/Sakal/26Feb2012/Normal/PuneCity/page3.htm Coverage in Navashakti newspaper here: http://navshakti.co.in/?p=42780

A followup session was conducted in Ranade Institure on 10th March and a few more hands on sessions are being planned in the coming weeks.

Overall, this was a very successful and well received event with a lot of interest generated in journalists and media students. Some new editors are also in the making from this event.

Warm regards, -Wikipedians from Pune community (with Rahul and his IITB team in Mumbai)

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