Send Wikimediaindia-l mailing list submissions to wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to wikimediaindia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org You can reach the person managing the list at wikimediaindia-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Wikimediaindia-l digest..." Today's Topics: 1. The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions (Achal Prabhala) 2. The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions (Achal Prabhala) 3. Re: [WMIN-Members] Formation of Communications, PR & Media Relations Team (Ramesh N G) 4. Re: [WMIN-Members] Formation of Communications, PR & Media Relations Team (CherianTinu Abraham) 5. Fwd: [Foundation-l] Wikimania scholarships deadline: Feb 16 (Jyothis E) 6. towards a Gujurati Wikisource (Gerard Meijssen) 7. Re: Formation of Communications, PR & Media Relations Team (Naveen Francis) 8. Wikipedia COIMBATORE Meetup 2 [Really short] Report. (Srikanth Ramakrishnan) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:06:17 +0530 From: Achal Prabhala &lt;aprabhala(a)gmail.com&gt; To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List &lt;foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;rg>, Wikimedia India Community list &lt;wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions Message-ID: &lt;4F392DF1.2090502(a)gmail.com&gt; Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: < http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/attachments/20120213/… ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:09:24 +0530 From: Achal Prabhala &lt;aprabhala(a)gmail.com&gt; To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List &lt;foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;rg>, Wikimedia India Community list &lt;wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions Message-ID: &lt;4F392EAC.9090708(a)gmail.com&gt; Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed There's an interesting article out in the current issue of the Chronicle: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Undue-Weight-of-Truth-on/130704/ It's behind a paywall, but in the spirit of fair use and in keeping with the author's intent (the article is on Wikipedia, and I believe the author would want to have us discuss it) I reproduce it here: The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia By Timothy Messer-Kruse For the past 10 years I've immersed myself in the details of one of the most famous events in American labor history, the Haymarket riot and trial of 1886. Along the way I've written two books and a couple of articles about the episode. In some circles that affords me a presumption of expertise on the subject. Not, however, on Wikipedia. The bomb thrown during an anarchist rally in Chicago sparked America's first Red Scare, a high-profile show trial, and a worldwide clemency movement for the seven condemned men. Today the martyrs' graves are a national historic site, the location of the bombing is marked by a public sculpture, and the event is recounted in most American history textbooks. Its Wikipedia entry is detailed and elaborate. A couple of years ago, on a slow day at the office, I decided to experiment with editing one particularly misleading assertion chiseled into the Wikipedia article. The description of the trial stated, "The prosecution, led by Julius Grinnell, did not offer evidence connecting any of the defendants with the bombing. ... " Coincidentally, that is the claim that initially hooked me on the topic. In 2001 I was teaching a labor-history course, and our textbook contained nearly the same wording that appeared on Wikipedia. One of my students raised her hand: "If the trial went on for six weeks and no evidence was presented, what did they talk about all those days?" I've been working to answer her question ever since. I have not resolved all the mysteries that surround the bombing, but I have dug deeply enough to be sure that the claim that the trial was bereft of evidence is flatly wrong. One hundred and eighteen witnesses were called to testify, many of them unindicted co-conspirators who detailed secret meetings where plans to attack police stations were mapped out, coded messages were placed in radical newspapers, and bombs were assembled in one of the defendants' rooms. In what was one of the first uses of forensic chemistry in an American courtroom, the city's foremost chemists showed that the metallurgical profile of a bomb found in one of the anarchists' homes was unlike any commercial metal but was similar in composition to a piece of shrapnel cut from the body of a slain police officer. So overwhelming was the evidence against one of the defendants that his lawyers even admitted that their client spent the afternoon before the Haymarket rally building bombs, arguing that he was acting in self-defense. So I removed the line about there being "no evidence" and provided a full explanation in Wikipedia's behind-the-scenes editing log. Within minutes my changes were reversed. The explanation: "You must provide reliable sources for your assertions to make changes along these lines to the article." That was curious, as I had cited the documents that proved my point, including verbatim testimony from the trial published online by the Library of Congress. I also noted one of my own peer-reviewed articles. One of the people who had assumed the role of keeper of this bit of history for Wikipedia quoted the Web site's "undue weight" policy, which states that "articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views." He then scolded me. "You should not delete information supported by the majority of sources to replace it with a minority view." The "undue weight" policy posed a problem. Scholars have been publishing the same ideas about the Haymarket case for more than a century. The last published bibliography of titles on the subject has 1,530 entries. "Explain to me, then, how a 'minority' source with facts on its side would ever appear against a wrong 'majority' one?" I asked the Wiki-gatekeeper. He responded, "You're more than welcome to discuss reliable sources here, that's what the talk page is for. However, you might want to have a quick look at Wikipedia's civility policy." I tried to edit the page again. Within 10 seconds I was informed that my citations to the primary documents were insufficient, as Wikipedia requires its contributors to rely on secondary sources, or, as my critic informed me, "published books." Another editor cheerfully tutored me in what this means: "Wikipedia is not 'truth,' Wikipedia is 'verifiability' of reliable sources. Hence, if most secondary sources which are taken as reliable happen to repeat a flawed account or description of something, Wikipedia will echo that." Tempted to win simply through sheer tenacity, I edited the page again. My triumph was even more fleeting than before. Within seconds the page was changed back. The reason: "reverting possible vandalism." Fearing that I would forever have to wear the scarlet letter of Wikipedia vandal, I relented but noted with some consolation that in the wake of my protest, the editors made a slight gesture of reconciliation?they added the word "credible" so that it now read, "The prosecution, led by Julius Grinnell, did not offer credible evidence connecting any of the defendants with the bombing. ... " Though that was still inaccurate, I decided not to attempt to correct the entry again until I could clear the hurdles my anonymous interlocutors had set before me. So I waited two years, until my book on the trial was published. "Now, at last, I have a proper Wikipedia leg to stand on," I thought as I opened the page and found at least a dozen statements that were factual errors, including some that contradicted their own cited sources. I found myself hesitant to write, eerily aware that the self-deputized protectors of the page were reading over my shoulder, itching to revert my edits and tutor me in Wiki-decorum. I made a small edit, testing the waters. My improvement lasted five minutes before a Wiki-cop scolded me, "I hope you will familiarize yourself with some of Wikipedia's policies, such as verifiability and undue weight. If all historians save one say that the sky was green in 1888, our policies require that we write 'Most historians write that the sky was green, but one says the sky was blue.' ... As individual editors, we're not in the business of weighing claims, just reporting what reliable sources write." I guess this gives me a glimmer of hope that someday, perhaps before another century goes by, enough of my fellow scholars will adopt my views that I can change that Wikipedia entry. Until then I will have to continue to shout that the sky was blue. Timothy Messer-Kruse is a professor in the School of Cultural and Critical Studies at Bowling Green State University. He is author of The Trial of the Haymarket Anarchists: Terrorism and Justice in the Gilded Age (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and The Haymarket Conspiracy: Transatlantic Anarchist Networks, to be published later this year by the University of Illinois Press. --- Two things that the article relates to, currently happening/ in proposal: A discussion on oral citations (recently revived): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Oral_Ci… A proposal to examine citations, including the use of 'primary sources': http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships/Project_Ideas/InCite --- Cheers, Achal ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:51:20 +0530 From: Ramesh N G &lt;rameshng(a)gmail.com&gt; To: wmin-members(a)googlegroups.com Cc: "Discussion list on Indian language projects of Wikimedia." &lt;wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;rg>, socialmedia(a)wikimedia.in, wikimedia-in-exec(a)lists.wikimedia.org, communications(a)wikimedia.in Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [WMIN-Members] Formation of Communications, PR & Media Relations Team Message-ID: &lt;CAM4jKiVmSG4GAO6cYhsREVLOAUkGzYkYByfRRTJqbNoi77yZ9g(a)mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Good job Tinu. good to see the energetic members of wiki are in the list. On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Tinu Cherian (Wikimedia India) < tinucherian(a)wikimedia.in&gt; wrote: > Hi all, > We are pleased to announce the first batch of our team for > Communications, PR & Media Relations of the Wikimedia India Chapter. > - Tinu Cherian, Head, Communications > - Arun Ramaratnam, Official Spokesperson > - Anirudh Bhati > - Srikeit Tadepalli > - Noopur Raval > - Srikanth Lakshmanan > - Naveen Francis > - Pranav Curumsey > - Ram Shankar Yadav > - Mitra Sharma > - Anivar Aravind > We are still discussing with lots of potential people who are interested > and have the necessary skills. We will be adding them as we progress. > *Scope of Work* > Duties and Responsibilities of the team include, but are not limited to > the following: > * General :* > - Development of a comprehensive multi-language Communications > Plan for Wikimedia Movement in India to support the Chapter's strategic Public outreach. > - Participating in Global Wikimedia Communications committee > and subscribed to its mailing list: wmfcc-l(a)mail.wikimedia.org > * Communications :* > - Supporting and overseeing communication with Wikimedia > community which includes Chapter members, general public and media. > - Helping the Chapter Secretary in the monthly report that is > send to the members and the community. > - Providing ad hoc support to the Chapter & Community on all > aspects of communications as may be deemed necessary. > * Public/ Media Relations :* > - Coordinating communications with the press, including press > releases, interviews, and inquiries. > - Handling press enquiries and answering them. > - Build a close partnership and working relation with a > network of journalists and news editors all over India and abroad. > - Maintaining a list of people willing to be contacted & > interviewed by the media. > - Identify potential "media worthy" stories and getting them > published into the mass media. > - Contacting editors and publishers of Wikipedia press > coverage to request that corrections be published as needed. > - Public Relations (PR) to build and manage relationships with > media and drive messaging that promotes participation. > - Researching press lists, monitoring and analyzing media > coverage, both negative and positive. > - will be responsible for executing and carrying out PR > campaigns on behalf of the chapter. > - Improve Wikimedia media coverage especially on Indian local > languages. > - Supporting the media coverage of Chapter , Wikimedia > Foundation and Community led events and initiatives in India like > Wikiconference, wikimeeetups, wikiacademies, workshops etc > * Digital Properties/Social Media :* > - Digital outreach comprises how to drive awareness and > education and movitation to participate in various projects from within the is participation.) > - Maintain the official IRC channel on freenode: #wikimedia-in > and regularly conduct planned IRC sessions. > - Maintain the social media properties including the ones on > facebook & twitter and Youtube channels, and all Public facing Digital > resources like the wiki, blog and website. > - Keeping the Wikimedia India Press kit and In the News > sections on the public wiki up to date. > - Interacting with the Chapter OTRS team. > - Help and co-ordinate the Community Newsletter, WikiPatrika > * Team Structure* > - The team is led by Head of Communications, PR & Media Relations, > Wikimedia Chapter. The position is a voluntary and not a staff/paid > position. > - There is an official Spokesperson of the Wikimedia India > Chapter. The position is a voluntary and not a staff/paid position. > - The above positions will be handled either by a single person or > two individuals. > - The Team will be internally divided into Communications , Press > & Social Media sub-teams. > You can find more information at > http://members.wikimedia.in/Communications > Regards > Tinu Cherian > Wikimedia India Chapter. > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Wikimedia > Chapter, India Member's Group. > To post to this group, send email to wmin-members(a)googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > wmin-members+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/wmin-members?hl=en?hl=en