*The Hindu : "Malayalam Wiki all set to expand database"*
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/article1611002.eโฆ
*
The Malayalam Wiki is on a roll. After winning accolades for its innovative
endeavours, the Malayalam Wiki continues to hog the limelight with its
latest project titled, โMalayalam Wikimediayaye Snehikkunnu' (Malayalam
loves Wikimedia).
Inspired by the resounding success of Wiki projects elsewhereโlike โLondon
loves Wikimedia'โthe new Malayalam Wiki project seeks to expand the
Malayalam Wiki repositories of free-to-access and use knowledge by adding
copyright-free news and feature photographs concerning Malayalam users.
โDuring the two-week project period between April 2 and April 17, we intend
to sensitise Malayalam Wiki contributors and users to enrich Malayalam Wiki
ventures by contributing free-to-use photographs. Despite boasting over
17,000 articles on a variety of topics, the Malayalam Wiki can't claim to
have many copyright-free pictures. Hence the project,โ maintains Shiju Alex,
Malayalam Wiki activist and coordinator.
The timing of the project couldn't have been any better, given the
forthcoming assembly polls. โThis is the time you get to photograph the
State's prominent political personalities. We have articles on many of them,
but most of their available photographs are copyrighted,โ he says. Four days
into the project, over 400 free-to-use photographs have been generated by
Malayalam Wiki users across the globe and uploaded into
http://commons.wikimedia.org and http://ml.wikipedia.org.
Besides political leaders, the project seeks to obtain copyright-free
photographs of places of historical significance; monuments; institutions of
governance including local bodies; noted personalities in the State's social
and cultural spheres as part of the project. โThe two-week project period is
just a token observance. The exercise is sure to stay on further,โ says Mr.
Alex. Contributors are encouraged to provide material besides additional
information pertaining to the photographs they upload. They have also been
asked to give, if possible, the geo-coding (on-map location coordinates) of
the photographs. An FAQ on the objectives and mode of implementation of the
project is available on the Malayalam Wiki page announcing it. A help mail,
help(a)mlwiki.in, has also been set up to field queries. Wiki activists Rajesh
Odayanchal and Ajay Kuyiloor have designed a unique logo and advertisement
for the project.
*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
http://wikimedia.in/wiki/In_the_news
After LDF, now it is the turn of UDF candidates. Website of Hibi Eden (
http://hibieden.in/ ) , NSUI president and UDF candidate in Kerala elections
2011, was changed to Creative Commons by SA 3.0 from non-commercial license
, on request.
http://twitter.com/#!/tinucherian/status/54954870901448704http://twitter.com/#!/prinson/status/55130510539763712
<http://twitter.com/#!/prinson/status/55130510539763712>Thanks to Naveenpf
for noticing this and we suggested it to them.
Let us see if we can take this free license movement in Kerala to
other candidates/leaders too.
Regards
Tinu Cherian
On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 12:19 AM, Shiju Alex <shijualexonline(a)gmail.com>wrote:
> Would you like to share some information about your latest effort?
>>
>
> Naveen, Thanks for sharing this news in India list.
>
> As Naveen mentioned below, the license of http://www.ldfkeralam.org/ is
> changed to a free license that is compatible with the wikipedia license.
> LDF is the current ruling coalition of Kerala. Now it is election season in
> Kerala and the above site is setup as part of election campaign.
>
> The IT sub-committee of LDF in principle has decided to use free licenses
> and free software in various places. Many of the people behind
> http://www.ldfkeralam.org/ have awareness about free software. In fact the
> site admin is a veteran Malayalam wikipedian. When LDF had decided to start
> the site, the license of the site was decided as CC-BY-SA 2.5 IN<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/in/deed.en>.
> But unfortunately when the site is released to public, license was pointing
> to a NC-ND license<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/in/deed.en>.
> I pointed this and they immediately corrected it. It was possible only
> because the people behind the site have awareness about the importance of
> free software licenses.
>
> Later when other district committees of LDF started website they also
> followed it since the mother site is using free license. There were cases of
> some district commitees using NC/ND license. But they corrcted it as soon as
> we pointed the issue in using non-free licenses. *Now there are many LDF
> sites using free license.*
>
> Wiki community could use photos (and the content also) of some of the
> notable LDF candidates. Since the content and images are free, people could
> freely use it across web for their blog, buzz, and so on.
>
> Few days back I have shared this story with few Indian language
> wikimedians. I requested some of them to see whether it is possible to
> replicate this in other Indian states.
>
>
> For instance, how easy or difficult was it to convince government
>> officials? Did it involve going into a lot of details with them?
>
>
> Awareness about free software and free licenses among government officials
> is very important. If the officials sitting at the other end doesn't have
> awareness about these things then nothing is possible. In the past,
> Malayalam wiki community and other Malayalam free software organizations
> (for example, SMC) have initiated various programs to create that awareness.
> We are happy to see that slowly that efforts are yielding.
>
> In Kerala, this is not the first time State Government or political parties
> or non government organizations are changing the license of their website to
> a license that is compatible with Wikipedia license. As mentioned in this
> mail thread,
> <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2010-November/001260.โฆ>way
> back in 2008, Kerala Government had officially announced that it is
> changing the license of govt. encyclopedic project in Malayalam
> (sarvavijanakosam) to Free documentation license<http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html>so that Malayalam wiki community could reuse its content to develop
> Malayalam wikipedia. This was done in 2008 December while Jimmy and Sue were
> in Thiruvananthapuram to attend the free software conference.
>
>
>
> We expect more happy news in the near future.
>
>
> Shiju
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Anirudh Bhati <anirudhsbh(a)gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> This is amazing! Congratulations, Shiju.
>>
>> Would you like to share some information about your latest effort? For
>> instance, how easy or difficult was it to convince government officials?
>> Did it involve going into a lot of details with them?
>>
>> Yours sincerely,
>>
>> Anirudh Bhati
>>
>> 00 91 9328712208
>> Skype: anirudhsbh
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 7:23 AM, Naveen Francis <naveenpf(a)gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> It is election season in Kerala.
>>> I have one good news to share with you all.
>>> Shiju Alex has convinced LDF election web team to change there site
>>> license to creative commons license.
>>> http://www.ldfkeralam.org/
>>>
>>> And now we are having images of candidates in commons and process is in
>>> progress.
>>>
>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_ldfkeralam.org_wโฆ
>>>
>>> Before this we didn't had images for many ministers in Kerala
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_S_Achuthanandan_Ministry
>>>
>>> He has also convinced http://www.ldfkannur.org/ web team to change there
>>> license. Now they are also creative commons.
>>>
>>> Thanks a lot Shiju !!! ... Need more site creative commons
>>>
>>> I think it is change in happening though it is slow.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Naveen Francis
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>>> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>>
>>>
>>
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>>
>>
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