Hello,
Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K) program
would like to share with you the newsletter below for the month of January
2016. We look forward to hear any feedback or input you might have.
== WikipediansSpeak: Odia Wikisourcer shares her journey and goals ==
The most active editor on the Odia Wikisource (
https://or.wikisource.org/wiki/ପ୍ରଧାନ_ପୃଷ୍ଠା) is Pankajmala Sarangi (
https://or.wikisource.org/wiki/ବ୍ୟବହାରକାରୀ:Pmsarangi), a native of Odisha
who now lives in New Delhi, where she works at a non-profit. As a leader in
a broad community that is dominated by males (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia)—indeed, she is the
most active contributor to the Odia-language Wikisource —we asked her to
share her journey and her goals to grow the project and community as part
of the “WikipediansSpeak (http://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/wikipediansspeak/)”
interview series.
What is the community like on the Odia Wikisource?
Pankajmala feels that the community is like her home. “I can’t tell how
happy I am after seeing that this one year-old project has already
digitized over 200 books. With more and more youth coming on the internet,
the internet won’t disappoint them when the type and search in Odia
language.”
What are projects that you would like to start or get help from the
existing community to grow?
Forming expert /resource groups to increase the thematic group structure in
the community so that each group could work collaboratively for specific
goals.
⬤ We can also create groups through the help of the resident welfare
associations in Odisha cities where Odia WikiTungis (in Odia Wikimedia
community city based informal groups have been started that actively
organize outreach and engage with new Wikimedians) are already working.
They can work hand-in-hand. This will help us expand this program to more
new places.
⬤ We can tie up with basic computer training institutes where their
students and new Wikimedians who do not have access to computer/internet
could learn about Odia Wikipedia editing as a vocational training. These
institutes remain idle during day time and get busy after 4 pm as schools
and college students come to learn about computer basics after their class
hours.
⬤ One idea could be involving veterans whose expertise could help improve
the quality of the articles which is otherwise going in vain after
retirement. Post retirement life is otherwise lonely and many feel
worthless who could enjoy the company of many new friends. The senior
citizens groups could train new Wikimedians using these institutional
facilities.
. . . Read more on Wikimedia blog here:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/29/odia-wikisourcer-journey-goals/
== Events organized/participated ==
⬤ Kannada Wikipedia edit-a-thon at Mysore, Karnataka (11-13 January): Prior
to Kannada Wikipedia's 13th anniversary (
https://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ:ಹದಿಮೂರನೆಯ_ವರ್ಷಾಚರಣೆ), four thematic
edit-a-thons were planned. The third edit-a-thon of this series was
conducted at the Centre for Proficiency Development and Placement Services
(CPDPS), Manasa Gangotri, University of Mysore. 30 participants
participated and actively edited Kannada Wikipedia during this workshop.
⬤ Telugu Wikipedia Education Program at Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada
12-13 January, (
http://cis-india.org/openness/events/telugu-wikipedia-education-program-at-…):
In collaboration with the Andhra Loyola College (ALC), Vijayawada, CIS-A2K
opened up a Wikipedia Digital Centre in the institution. The aim of opening
this center is to help the students and local Wikimedians to grow Wikipedia
and other Wikimedia projects in Telugu and other Indian languages. As part
of this two-day program an edit-a-thon was also organized. 40 undergraduate
students (10 each from Botany, Statistics, Physics and Telugu departments)
contributing in creating articles in Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil
Wikipedias.
⬤ Konkani-language Edit-a-thon and English-Romi Konkani dictionary release (
cis-india.org/a2k/news/100-konkani-articles-added-to-wikipedia-in-one-day):
On 14 January a one-day edit-a-thon was organized at Krishnadas Shama
Central Library, Goa. Rahmanuddin Shaik on behalf of CIS-A2K participated
in this event and helped in mentoring the participants. Almost 100 new
articles were created on Konkani Wikipedia on this day. On the same day, an
English-Romi (Latin is also known as Romi in Konkani) Konkani dictionary
was released. The dictionary contains English equivalent of 21,760 Konkani
words.
⬤ Geographical Indications in India Edit-a-thon (25 January-10 February
2016) (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Geographical_Indications_in_…):
A multi-lingual online edit-a-thon was organized with the theme of creating
or expanding articles related to Geographical Indications of India. More
than 80 Wikipedians from 18 different Indic Wikipedia communities (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Geographical_Indications_in_…)
participated in this edit-a-thon. More details about the edit-a-thon's
impact will be shared in the coming month's newsletter.
== Articles, blogs, learning patterns ==
⬤ Shaik, Rahmanuddin. Odia Wikipedia progress from July to December, 2015,
1 January 2016:
http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-sad-state-of-odia-wikipedia
Analysis of the project's growth/fall trends during July-December 2015
based on statistical point of view.
⬤ Shaik, Rahmanuddin. Report of Konkani Wikipedia's progress (July-December
2015), 1 January 2016:
http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/konkani-wikipedia-progress-from-july-to-dece…
Statistical analysis of the Goan Konkani Wikipedia's growth/fall trends.
⬤ Panigrahi, Subhashish. ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର: ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଡିଜିଟାଲ ପାଠାଗାର
ଆନ୍ଦୋଳନର ନୂଆ ମୁହଁ, YourStory, 12 January 2016
http://goo.gl/OmC4tg
A column about the journey of Odia Wikisource after it went live (
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/10/21/more-than-40-million-people-await-the-…)
out of incubation in 2014.
⬤ Panigrahi, Subhashish. ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ କିଛି ଅନ୍ତର୍ଜାତୀୟ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ,
YourStory, 14 January 2016
http://goo.gl/6fwvi1
A piece on open knowledge/source online projects like Odia Wikipedia and
Wikisource.
⬤ Panigrahi, Subhashish. Why It's Essential To Grow Indian-Language
Wikipedias, Huffington Post, 25 January 2016
http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/huffington-post-subhashish-panigrahi-january…
An Opinion piece on the state of Indian language Wikimedia projects and
their potential bring digital activism in the respective languages.
⬤ Panigrahi, Subhashish. This Multilingual Edit-a-thon wants to Improve
Indian Content on Wikipedia, DNA, 26 January 2016
http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/this-multilingual-edit-a-thon-wants-to-impro…
Introducing the Geographical Indications in India edit-a-thon (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Geographical_Indications_in_…
).
⬤ Santosh, Pavan. Relicensing encyclopedic work under CC license to grow
Wikisource and Wikipedia
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns/Relicensing_encycl…
Non availability of online reliable resources related to Telugu-language,
culture, social and political aspects in Telugu language to improve
articles has been a hindrance to good quality articles in Telugu Wikipedia.
This Learning Pattern discusses about how such challenges have been
addressed by content release partnerships, relicensing content under
CC-BY-SA licenses and thematic digitization sprints.
⬤ Panigrahi, Subhashish and Ali, Nasim. WikipediansSpeak: Odia Wikisourcer
Shares her Journey and Goals, 30 January 2016
http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipediansspeak-odia-wikisourcer-shares-her…
Odia Wikisourcer Pankajmala Sarangi shares her experience and future plans
to grow the community.
== Media coverage ==
⬤ Books at a Click (
http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/new-indian-express-january-9-2016-diana-sahu-…),
New Indian Express, 9 January 2016
⬤ Read Bengali, Malayalam classics online as free Wiki libraries grow (
http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-times-of-india-january-10-2016-sandhya-so…).
The Times of India. 10 January 2016
⬤ Youth is responsible for protecting Telugu (
http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/eenadu-telugu-wikipedia-january-14-2016-youth…),
Eenadu, 14 January 2016
⬤ Wikipedia Digital Centre now at Andhra Loyola College (
http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-hans-india-january-14-2016-wikipedia-digi…),
Hans India, 14 January 2016
⬤ 100 Konkani Articles Added to Wikipedia in One Day (
http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/100-konkani-articles-added-to-wikipedia-in-on…),
The Times of India, 15 January 2016
⬤ Kannada Wikipedia not on top of the charts (
http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-hindu-january-19-muralidhara-khajane-kann…),
The Hindu, 19 January 2016
⬤ GI-tagged products to get Wiki pages (
http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-hindu-s-anandan-january-26-2016-gi-tagged…),
The Hindu, 26 January 2016
⬤ GI-tagged products to get Wiki pages (
http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-hindu-s-anandan-january-26-2016-gi-tagged…),
The Hindu, 26 January 2016
⬤ Wikipedia initiative - Celebrating legacy of Bangalore Blue grapes online
(cis-india.org/a2k/news/times-of-india-january-27-2016-wikipedia-initiative),
The Times of India, 27 January 2016
This newsletter is also available on Meta at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Reports/Newsletter/January_2016
Please vote for and comment on the steward elections and confirmations.
Regards,
Jyothis.
http://www.Jyothis.net
[[User:Jyothis]] <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis>
Camerocks - Rock your digital world! <https://www.camerocks.com/>
completion date = (start date + ((estimated effort x 3.1415926) /
resources) + ((total coffee breaks x 0.25) / 24)) + Effort in meetings
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sarith Divakar <sarithdivakarm(a)gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 2:59 PM
Subject: Wiki Class
To: freewikiclass(a)gmail.com
Hi,
Greetings from LBS College of Engineering!
As a part of FLOSS club at our college would like to arrange a session on
Malayalam Wikipedia. Please let us know the way forward.
Looking forward to your positive response.
Regards
Sarith Divakar M
Asst. Professor, Computer Science
LBS College of Engineering, Kasaragod
*www.lbscek.ac.in <http://www.lbscek.ac.in>* | <http://goog_1016235467>
www.sarithdivakar.info <http://sarithdivakar.info>
"Night is Longer than Day for Those who Dream and Day is Longer than Night
for Those who Make their Dreams come True!"
*Why It's Essential To Grow Indian-Language Wikipedias*
On 15 January, Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia celebrated its 15th
birthday, meeting this milestone with 36 million articles in more than 290
languages (the English-language Wikipedia alone has crossed the 5-million
article mark
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/11969459/Wikipedias-5-milli…>).
But here I want to address some major questions that we need to ask as
Indians. First, what is the state of Indian-language Wikipedia projects?
What does India have to take from and give to Wikipedia?
With the growth of free and open source software in India, people are
equipped with more freedom than ever.
<http://www.gndec.ac.in/%7Elibrarian/sveri/dbit2306009.pdf> Especially with
the recent federal policy-level changes
<https://opensource.com/government/15/6/indian-government-includes-open-sour…>,
the nation is enjoying better collaboration with people of different
cultures speaking different languages.
However, there is a huge gap in the access to knowledge on the internet
domain. Of a population of about 1.26 billion only about 15-18% people are
connected online, largely from mobile devices. A tiny fraction of this
population comprises the technical community. It would be useful to have a
metric on the percentage of this community's contribution to grow the
languages of this country and its cultural heritage.
*Wikipedia as a family*
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopaedia. It is also a "family" of several
other Open Knowledge members. Wikipedia itself is available in over 290
languages, but it also has other multilingual sister projects such as
Wikisource (an online library of many public domain and other important
texts), Wikimedia Commons (the world's largest repository of media files
and documents), Wikibooks (a free library of educational textbooks),
Wikivoyage (a free and open travel guide) and Wiktionary (a database of
various languages).
These projects don't just house millions of images, videos, documents and
texts, but allow anyone to contribute their knowledge to this ever
deepening pool of information. Four Indian languages made an early entry to
the Wiki-world back in 2002 -- Assamese <http://as.wikipedia.org/>,
Malayalam <http://ml.wikipedia.org/>, Odia <http://or.wikipedia.org/> and
Punjabi <http://pa.wikipedia.org/>.
*Language neutrality*
According to UNESCO, 197 of the total of 1652 Indian languages are dying
despite having a long literary and linguistic heritage. It's quite
shocking. In a blog post
<https://opensource.com/community/14/7/save-endangered-language-today> on
content localisation, social entrepreneur Rajesh Ranjan asks if free and
open source software can help save these dying languages. In the context of
Wikipedia, there are already 23 South Asian-language projects. Out of these
20 are languages listed in the 8th schedule of the Constitution of India.
Many might not have noticed that the "en" in the URL of Wikipedia that
denotes the language code of English could be altered with "or" for Odia
Wikipedia or "pa" for Punjabi Wikipedia.
Most Wikipedia projects in Indian language projects are relatively small
compared to their counterparts. But the Wikimedia communities are thriving
When only parts of government websites are available in Hindi, the Hindi
Wikipedia has crossed 10 million articles already. The Tamil and Malayalam
Wikipedia communities have played a central part in implementing Wikipedia
basics learning in the state-run school syllabus. Needless to say that
these communities have played a significant role in implementing several
free and open source software by pushing for policy-level change. Many
Indian languages are in the pipeline to become active Wikipedia projects
under the scope of the Wikimedia Incubator
<https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Incubator:Test_wikis/code/val…>.
Maithili Wikipedia
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/09/08/a-focused-approach-for-maithili-wikipe…>
and Goan Konkani Wikipedia
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/07/15/konkani-wikipedia-goes-live/> are the
two Indian-language Wikipedias that have gone live in recent years. The
world has seen how digital activism has brought a new life to the Hebrew
language. There are a fairly large number of native speakers waiting out
there to access knowledge in their own languages. Wikipedia could be a
great tool for digital activism with openness and sharing.
*Addressing gender bias in Wikipedia: Implications for India*
India tops South Asia in the gender inequality index
<http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/gender-inequality-index-in-south…>
in the entire South Asia. The female literacy rate is an alarmingly low
65.46% <http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2009/en/pdf/EN_SOWP09_ICPD.pdf> as
compared to 82.14% for men. This disparity is evident in many other sectors
as well as in politics.
But gender bias is not just a problem in India. The global free and open
source software (FOSS) community has always been worried about the low
presence of women
<https://books.google.co.in/books?id=AJpACwAAQBAJ&pg=PT49&lpg=PT49&dq=gender…>
contributors -- in the range of 2-5% range.
<https://people.cs.umass.edu/%7Ewallach/talks/2011-04-05_JHU.pdf> Wikimedia
Foundation's former executive director admitted that Wikipedia, like many
other collaborative and open projects, does not have a conducive
environment for women. But the Wikimedia community and Wikimedia Foundation
are both working on improving this state of affairs. Indian-language
Wikipedia projects are directly impacted by this global drive, be it the
Women's History Month edit-a-thon where Wikipedia content largely related
to women are improved every year or the Lilavati's Daughters project
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lilavati%27s_Daughters_Edit-a-thon>where
biographies of Indian women scientists were created and enriched in
Wikipedia projects.
*Complementing Digital India*
With a population of over 354 million
<http://dazeinfo.com/2015/09/05/internet-users-in-india-number-mobile-iamai/>
netizens India still has a long way to go in increasing Indian language
content on the web
<http://tdil.mit.gov.in/wsi/papers/Issues_&_Challenges_for_Enabling_Mobile_w…>.
The Government of India's new campaign Digital India
<http://www.digitalindia.gov.in/content/vision-and-vision-areas> aims
at digital
literacy and availability of digital resources/services in Indian languages
<http://www.cmai.asia/digitalindia/>. This is closely aligned with the
Wikimedia movement's goal to provide free access to the sum of all human
knowledge. In addition to Wikipedia, many other open educational resources
and free knowledge projects that are not already a part of the Digital
India campaign signal the need for the federal-run campaign to be more
collaborative and open. Community-government collaborations like the NROER
project
<https://blog.creativecommons.org/2013/08/14/india-launches-national-reposit…>
to make NCERT books under Creative Commons licenses and IT@School project
<https://www.itschool.gov.in/glance.php> in the state of Kerala to provide
education using free and open tools have gained massive traction and helped
more Indian language content come online.
by Subhashish Panigrahi (original text under CC-BY-SA 4.0 by author and
editions copyrighted by the editor of the Huffington Post India, available
online at
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/subhashish-panigrahi-/when-wikipedia-is-turnin…
)
Best!
Subhashish Panigrahi
Programme Officer, Access To Knowledge
Centre for Internet and Society
@subhapa / https://cis-india.org
സുഹൃത്തുക്കളേ,
ലൈബ്രറി കൗണ്സില് മയ്യില്
<https://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BF…>
ഗ്രാമപഞ്ചായത്ത് നേതൃസമിതിയുടെയും വേളം പൊതുജന വായനശാല
<http://velam.in/>യുടെയും ആഭിമുഖ്യത്തില്
വിക്കിയെ പരിചയപ്പെടുത്തുന്നതിനായി ഒരു ക്ലാസ് ജനുവരി 23ന് (ശനിയാഴ്ച)
വൈകുന്നേരം മൂന്ന് മണിക്ക് വായനശാലയില് വച്ച് നടത്തുന്നു.
വിക്കിപ്രവര്ത്തകരായ വിജയകുമാര് ബ്ലാത്തൂര്, അനൂപ് നാരായണന്, ലാലു
മേലേടത്ത് എന്നിവര് പങ്കെടുക്കുന്നു.
മയ്യില് പ്രദേശത്തെ വായനശാലാ-ഗ്രന്ഥശാലാ പ്രവര്ത്തകരും, ലൈബ്രേറിയന്മാരും,
വിക്കി പ്രവര്ത്തനത്തിന് താത്പര്യം ഉള്ളവരും, പ്രദേശവാസികളുമാണ് പ്രധാന
ഓഡിയന്സ് ആയി ഉദ്ദേശിക്കുന്നത്. പങ്കെടുക്കുന്നവരില് ഭൂരിഭാഗവും
വിക്കിപീഡിയയില് തിരുത്തലുകള് വരുത്തുന്നതിന് നേരിട്ട് പ്രവര്ത്തിക്കാനുള്ള
സാങ്കേതിക പരിജ്ഞാനം ഉള്ളവര് ആയിരിക്കില്ല. എങ്കിലും വിക്കി തത്പരരെ
പ്രാദേശികമായി സംഘടിപ്പിക്കുവാനും വിക്കിഗ്രന്ഥശാലക്ക് ആവശ്യമായ പുസ്തകങ്ങള്
ഡിജിറ്റൈസ് ചെയ്യുന്നതിനും അവര്ക്ക് സഹായിക്കാന് കഴിയും. അതുകൊണ്ട്തന്നെ
അത്തരം ആളുകള്ക്ക് വിക്കിപീഡിയയെ പരിചയപ്പെടുത്തുക എന്നതാണ് പ്രധാനമായും
ഉദ്ദേശിക്കുന്നത്. വിക്കിയുടെ പ്രവർത്തനങ്ങളുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെട്ട്
പ്രവർത്തിക്കാനും അതിന് സഹായകമാകുന്ന രീതിയിൽ മയ്യിൽ പ്രദേശത്ത്
കുട്ടികളുടെയും യുവാക്കളുടെയും ഒരു കൂട്ടായ്മ ആണ് ലക്ഷ്യം.
വിക്കി എഡിറ്റിംഗ്, ഡിജിറ്റൈസേഷന് എന്നിവക്കുള്ള പരിശീലനം നല്കുന്നതുമായി
ബന്ധപ്പെട്ടുള്ള പ്രവര്ത്തനങ്ങള്ക്ക് ഒരു മുന്നൊരുക്കം എന്ന നിലയില് ഇത്
ഉപകാരപ്രദം ആകും എന്ന് വിശ്വസിക്കുന്നു.
കൂടാതെ കണ്ണൂര് ജില്ലാ ലൈബ്രറി കൗണ്സില് സംഘടിപ്പിക്കുന്ന "ലൈബ്രറി പഠന
കൊണ്ഗ്രെസ്സി"ല് വിക്കി ക്ലാസ് സംഘടിപ്പിക്കുന്നുണ്ട്. അതിന്റെ ഭാഗമായുള്ള
പ്രാഥമിക സെമിനാര് എന്ന നിലയിലും ആണ് ഈ പരിപാടി നടത്തുന്നത്.
ഇതിന് വേണ്ടിയുള്ള പ്രവര്ത്തനങ്ങള് നടത്തുന്നതിന് പ്രചോദനങ്ങള് നല്കിയ
വിശ്വേട്ടന്, വിജയേട്ടന്, ഷിജു അലക്സ്, മനോജ് കെ, ലാലു മേലേടത്ത് മറ്റ്
വിക്കിപ്രവര്ത്തകര്ക്കും നന്ദി. വിജയേട്ടന്, മയ്യില് സ്വദേശികളും
വിക്കിപ്രവര്ത്തരും ആയ അനൂപ് നാരായണന്, സജൽ കരിക്കൻ എന്നിവരും ഈ ഒരു
പരിപാടിയുടെ ഒരുക്കുന്നതിന് സഹായിക്കുന്നു.
സ്നേഹത്തോടെ,
സുധീഷ്
*കൂടുതല് വിവരങ്ങള്ക്ക്:*
യു. ജനാര്ദ്ധനന് - 9400676548
(സെക്രട്ടറി, വേളം പൊതുജന വായനശാല)
*വാല്ക്കഷണം:*
മയ്യില് പ്രദേശത്തെ വായനശാലകളെ കുറിച്ച്
- മയ്യിലുകാര്ക്ക് എന്നും വായനാദിനം (എഷ്യാനെറ്റ്) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0fi2BjD5n0
- ഒരു ഗ്രാമത്തിന് വെളിച്ചമായി 33 ഗ്രന്ഥാലയങ്ങൾ – മാതൃഭൂമി കാഴ്ച -
http://velam.in/2016/lib-of-mayyil/
- ഇ.എം.എസ്. പുരസ്കാരം വേളം പൊതുജന വായനശാലയ്ക്ക് -
http://velam.in/2015/ems-award/
Hello,
The planned Geographical Indications in India Edit-a-thon is going to start
on 25 January, and it will continue till 31 January. The goal of this
edit-a-thon is to create and improve Geographical Indications articles.
Thanks to everyone who have shown interest in this initiative.
If you have not signed up still, but want to join, *please sign up now*.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Geographical_Indications_in_…
Please feel free to share this message with any other Wikipedian who may be
interested in this activity.
Thanks