[Wikimedia-IN-PUN] Fwd: Announcing - WikiProject Offline Wikipedia for Indian Schools

[Ashwin Baindur]

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Ashwin Baindur
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ashwin Baindur <ashwin.baindur at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 7:39 PM
Subject: Announcing - WikiProject Offline Wikipedia for Indian Schools
To: WikiProject India mailing list <wikimedia-in-en at lists.wikimedia.org>


ANNOUNCING A NEW WIKIPROJECT

(WikiProject Offline Wikipedia for Indian Schools)
 Dear friends,

This is to announce the beginning of a new project for WikiProject
India - WikiProject
Offline Wikipedia for Indian Schools (OWIS). For quite some time now, there
has been a need for an offline wikipedia compilation suitable to Indian
schools. There are, and have always been, a whole lot of Indian schools and
students out there who do not have access to an English encyclopedia. The
web has killed off a whole range of printed encyclopedias and factbooks
besides paid encyclopedia packages such as Encarta. If the school does not
provide wide-spread, regular and dependable access to the web. then the
students have zilch. So, keeping in mind that English Wikipedia has been
around for more than a decade and has more than enough material for an
encyclopedia, we began this project so that all interested people could
pitch in and collectively prepare such offline compilations which are the
need of the hour.

About the Wikiproject

To do this, we began a new WikiProject in English Wikipedia, daughter to
WikiProject India. Titled WikiProject Offline Wikipedia for Indian
Schools(OWIS), it is intended to be the umbrella WikiProject for all
Indian
versions of offline English language wikipedias for students and
communities. The WikiProject will concentrate on content issues and leave
the production to a team of technically oriented guys from the community
(to be decided later).

You can read about the WikiProject page here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Offline_Wikipedia_for_Indian_Schools

Under this WikiProject, it is proposed to provide a variety of compilations
suitable for various needs, such as a full offline encyclopedia, single
disc collations on topics related to India etc.

The first project

To begin with, we felt it is best to create a single DVD compilation with
all subjects covered in sufficient detail. We have named it as Offline
Wikipedia for Indian Schools (Full version) or OWIS-FULL (in short).


It is based on and will be similar to the SOS Children’s Village Offline
Wikipedia for School which you can checkout for yourself at this link:

http://schools-wikipedia.org/

The project page for this first project is here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Offline_Wikipedia_for_Indian_Schools/Offline_Full

The SOS village compilation is CD based with approximately 6500 articles
based on the British educational syllabus. Naturally, it contains a large
number of topics relevant only to the UK and has a distinct Western flavour
in its overall choice too, which is only natural.

To make this compilation suitable for our environment, we will have to not
only add a whole host of new articles on Indian topics to the compilation
but also remove topics/articles irrelevant to Indian students. In addition,
the SOS Children’s Encyclopaedia, being in existence for the last few
years, is designed to fit on a CD with the consequence that the number of
articles on a subject cover a subject satisfactorily but skimpily. Since we
plan our compilation to be on a DVD, there is scope to improve coverage on
all subjects as well. Hence it is planned to have in the region of around
9000 articles.

So where are we now? As a first step we have established the framework in
the form of the WikiProject and pages where one can work. The list of
topics from the SOS compilation has been prepared subjectwise. These lists
need to be vetted/improved/extended and then finalised.

As of now, six subjects have been opened up for topic selection - Art, IT,
Maths, Physics, Biology and Chemistry. We need motivated editors to join
the teams and pitch in. The selection of topics needs to be completed in
ten days time so that we can move on to other subjects, other tasks.

So, if this venture interests you, if you want to do something really
important with us, if you agree with our proposition that this is critical
for delivering the potential of Wikipedia to digitally-challenged
communities, sign up here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Offline_Wikipedia_for_Indian_Schools/Offline_Full#Members

All the best to all of us to successfully complete this vital project.


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Ashwin Baindur
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