Hi Nikhil,

Thank you for your detailed comments. I agree with you that there is a need for our kids to be internationally relevant and I respect your inclusionist approach. There are a few points to make:

Firstly, your contention that India-specific information is available all around is a falllacy. I can find more information easily about the Bastille than I can about Shaniwarwada.

Secondly, prima facie, all the articles are not necessarily relevant, there appears to be some ad hocism here also. For example, I cannot understand why this article was added Apaochi but no Kublai Khan. Similarly the chosen article "caveman" really sucks. They should have added "Human evolution" instead. I understand this kindof curating involves tremendous amount of work. I'm also criticising post-event which is so easy to do. But my point is, they have a wonderful first version - but its exactly that, as far as choice & development is concerned - a first version, which can be improved.

Secondly, the plan is to go over our class text books from 3rd to 10th and check that every important subject is included which the children would have questions about. Also important topics from our culture, environment, current affairs, etc are added which they may want to ask about.

Thirdly, space will be a constraint if the encyclopedia is to be on one DVD only so that some items would have to be excluded to make way for the new ones. Also, why retain articles like Boadecia or Elizabethan Poor Law which more than 95% Indians will never have come across or never will?

Fourthly, Indic language Wikipedias are more likely to have topics of Indian interest and very few about the rest of the world. Too many articles outside our milieu will result in our inability to gather enough articles in that language for an offline Wikipedia.

This task of mine will take quite some time. I plan to ask domain experts in both the teaching of children and the subject matters to help us select appropriate articles.

I agree that there should be an international edition too. But I feel there is tremendous scope for improvement on this version to achieve that goal also. If the encyclopaedia is actually to be made relevant to the world than there is a huge amount of critical examination of articles to be done and then articles added, expanded, rewritten, improved etc. Just making a good choice of articles to compile an encyclopedia is not enough, even on English Wikipedia. Let the Universal edition be another fork on which interested parties may work.

To conclude, I do not take it as a given that every thing is hunky dorey. Without meaning disrespect for the absolutely wonderful work and colossal efforts put in by the SOS Children's village Wikipedia team, I personally would like to tweak it so as to suit the Indian palate. I too am part of the world movement but I consider it a glocal one, not a global one. At this point of the time, I'm looking at how to make the world relevant to our locality.

Respectfully, AshLin

Warm regards,

Ashwin Baindur ------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 6:20 PM, Nikhil Sheth nikhil.js@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Ashwin,

Thanks, but with all due respect, I have a few doubts and concerns. I've shared them on the talk page.

http://wikimedia.in/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia_for_Schools_-_Indian_version

Cheers, Nikhil Sheth +91-966-583-1250 Pune, India Teach For India Fellow, 2011-13 www.nikhilsheth.tk Find me on: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google | RangDe Join me on: Pune Documentary Club | Let's Do it Pune | Toastmasters in Pune | Wikipedia For Schools project

On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 5:15 PM, Ashwin Baindur ashwin.baindur@gmail.com wrote:

...

Hi Nikhil,

You had ported an English Wikipedia for Schools to the portable ZIM file format for distribution. However that edition consists of articles selected for the Western milieu by SOS Children's Village Project. It needs tweaking to be relevant to our environment. Plus, we will need to collect equivalent sets for each Indian Language. Probably, some wikipedias may not have equivalent inter-wikis and will need fresh articles written for them.

I have begun listing the articles of the SOS version of Wikipedia for Schools ( I have the torrent/html version). Once we have listed them all, we'll customise it for India. It's begun on Wikimedia India as a Project by me. Find it here :

http://wikimedia.in/wiki/Wikipedia_for_Schools_-_Indian_version

Warm regards,

Ashwin Baindur