*The Hindu :* *"Indian Wikipedians look forward to Hong Kong meet "*
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indian-wikipedians-look-forward-to-ho…
* It sounds like a motley group — a septuagenarian from Chennai, a
mother-daughter team from Salem, a computer engineer from Pune and a
medical student from Kozhikode. But the commonality these people share is
that they are among the 11 Indian Wikipedians — persons who contribute
articles to and/or edit for the online encyclopaedia — who will be
attending Wikimania, 2013.
Wikimania is an annual conference centred on Wikipedia and similar
projects. It will be held in Hong Kong in August (9 to 11) this year.
The website on the event (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania) says it
“… features presentations on Wikimedia projects, other wikis, open-source
software, free knowledge and free content, and the social and technical
aspects which relate to these topics”.
At Wikimania, 300 to 720 people from 50 countries — including writers,
editors, programmers, photographers and Wikimedia Foundation staff — meet.
It is “organised by local volunteer teams, with support from international
volunteers, and the Wikimedia Foundation and other sponsors.”
Sengai Podhuvan, the 75-year-old Tamil Wikipedian, who earlier edited a
journal on sports in Tamil, told The Hindu he had submitted a paper,
‘Improvements to Wiki editing process’, for Wikimania.
Mr. Podhuvan has added as many as 2,350 articles on Tamil literature and
science to the Tamil Wikipedia. He has placed in a chronological order
2,000 books from the 17th century and before. He has added information on
200 rural games that were played in the last century till 1950 or 1960 from
various States. “My own experience, my service, my childhood, these are my
source,” he said.
Mr. Podhuvan said: “My hands are shivering. I can’t hold a tumbler or make
a cup of tea without help from my wife. But I can type.”
Netha Hussain, the MBBS student, is a “pilot volunteer” for Wiki Women’s
Collaborations, a worldwide women-driven initiative which concentrates on
creating women-relevant content online. Ms. Hussain, who attended the Wiki
Women’s Camp in Argentina last year, said: “Not more than 22 per cent of
the articles [on Wikipedia] are by women. Articles on women’s health are
neglected because of fewer number of women editors. We want more women.”
She has made 10,000 “edits,” of which 3,500 are for the Malayalam Wikipedia
and 3,500 for the Wikipedia. Though she has written on topics such as the
medical uses of saffron, mostly, she said, “I translate articles from
English, which is easy. But it is tough to find the exact words in
Malayalam. The dictionaries are not updated. So we have to use English,
Tamil or Sanskrit words [in the Malayalam script].”
Arnav Sonara, the student of computer engineering, is looking forward to
meeting new people — especially those with whom he has been working online
at Wikimania. He has made 5,000 edits, including 2,000 for the Gujarati
Wikipedia. He keeps adding articles as the Gujarati Wikipedia has “only
22,500” entries and needs more content. He keeps a check on vandalism of
articles. “I do speedy deletions. If new articles not conforming to
Wikipedia norms appear, I mark them for deletions. I keep an eye on them.”
Parvathi, a teacher in the Government Middle School, Kandhampatti, Salem,
said she would like to discuss many subjects, in Tamil, at Wikimania. She
has added 10,500 edits to the Tamil Wikipedia since September 2011. The
additions are to Tamil literature, scientists and “Divya Desams” — the 108
Vaishnava temples. She contributed 30 articles to the first page and 700
photos in a Wiki Tamil Contest for which she got a “Continuous
Participation” award. Her daughter, who has been editing for the past one
month, will accompany her.
Wikimanias have been held since 2005 in Germany, the United States, Taiwan,
Egypt, Argentina, Poland, Israel and last year in Washington, says the
website. *
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
Important Note : Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes only.
The publisher (The Hindu ) of the above news article owns the copyrights of
the article / content. All copyrights are duly acknowledged.
Dear all,
Here is the A2K newsletter for the month of April, 2013.
Wikimedia Foundation, beginning from September 1, 2012, awarded the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. Consequently, Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program became the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program of CIS. In the third issue of our newsletter for 2013, we are pleased to bring you updates from the Indic Wikipedia Visualisation project, reports of events organised in Goa, and press coverage of the Kannada Wikipedia Workshop held in Mysore.
The A2K team consists of three members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahiand one member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who is working from Bangalore office. Noopur Raval, Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge) has resigned. April 24, 2013 was her last working day. Archives of our newsletters are here.
Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications athttp://bit.ly/TOcXId.
# Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project
Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages.
# Blog Entries
Indian WikiWomen celebrate Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain, April 29, 2013).
Analysis of Konkani Wikipedia: Facts & Challenges (by Nitika Tandon, April 30, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia: Needs Assessment (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 30, 2013).
# Event Organised
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (April 29, 2013, Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia.
# Events Co-organised
The following events were organised in the month of March but reports were written during the month of April. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi held meetings with wikipedians:
Kolkata Wiki Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Kolkata Wiki Community, March 14, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia - Cuttack Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Cuttack, March 16, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia – Bhubaneswar Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Bhubaneswar, March 17, 2013).
The following event was organised in the month of April. We will be publishing the report soon:
Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013 (organised by Telugu Wikipedia Community and CIS, Hyderabad, April 9 – 11, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan was one of the trainers at the Wikipedia Academy at Centre for Good Governance on April 9, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan spoke about the Access to Knowledge work in one of the sessions of Wikimedia Meeting with Media Heads on April 10, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on A2K’s plans for the growth of Telegu Wikipedia in 2013-14 at the Telegu Wikipedia general meeting on April 11, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan also gave a talk about Access to Knowledge in the digital era at the Wiki Chaitanya Vedika on April 11, 2013.
*About CIS*
CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilitieswith ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?,Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.
CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.
*Follow us elsewhere*
· Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
· Join the CIS group on Facebook
· Visit us at http://cis-india.org
*Support Us*
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.
*Request for Collaboration*
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil(a)cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant(a)cis-india.org
CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.
Thanks
Nitika Tandon
Program Manager
Access to Knowledge
The Centre for Internet & Society
Dear All,
The A2K team is organising an IRC on 13th May 2012, Monday from 8.30pm - 9.30 pm on: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-in.
The main agenda for IRC is to discuss the A2K Work Plan for the year 2013-2014 [1] that we had shared with you earlier. We'd like to hear comments/suggestions from as many of you as possible. This mail is to invite each one of you to join us for this IRC and help improvise our work plan. Just incase you'd like to join but cannot due to prior commitments please drop me a private message and we'll arrange a call with your separately.
Looking forward to see you tomorrow at IRC!
Thanks
Nitika Tandon
Program Manager
Access to Knowledge
The Centre for Internet & Society
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_20…
Dear All,
In our effort to increase transparency with the working of CIS-A2K
programme, we are sharing with you the A2K Programme Budget along with the
Utilization for the period Sept. 2012 to February 2013 [1]. We intended to
share this with you by mid April, but it got delayed, as we felt the need
to propose revisions to the budget in the context of the A2K Work Plans.
Apologies for this delay.
The proposed revisions to the budget along with some notes are here [2]. We
would appreciate your feedback and suggestions on this. Based on the
feedback received from you, we will approach the Wikimedia Foundation
seeking for approval of the revised budget. It will be very useful to hear
from you on the proposed revisions to the A2K grant budget before May 20,
2013.
Looking forward to your feedback.
Warmly,
Vishnu
Programme Director
Access to Knowledge Programme
CIS
[1]
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF-A2K_Grant_Budget_and_Utilization…
[2]
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF-A2K_Revised_Budget_(draft)_and_U…