[Wikimediaindia-l] Women's Wiki Workshop report
Jessie Wild
jwild at wikimedia.org
Wed Apr 13 17:53:07 UTC 2011
Thanks for the update on the event, Bishakha: I think women and
communities around the world can learn from this example. I also think
we should seriously consider how we can keep this concentrated focus on
women's studies in universities while developing the campus ambassador
program in India [0].
One note on the offline access to information: for more explanation of
the strategic fit of offline work in the Wikimedia movement, I would
point anyone interest to both the strategy page for
background/statistics [1] as well as the meta page which explains more
the current work/tools [2]. The general overview as recorded here:
/The goal of the Wikimedia movement at large is to make knowledge freely
available to all of humanity; currently, however, the content knowledge
available via the Wikimedia projects is mostly confined to those who
have access to a broadband Internet connection -- or less than 5% of the
developing world. It is critical for the reach of the movement to
proactively consider ways to make the information available to the
offline majority of the global population. In order to achieve the
greatest scale of impact possible, Wikimedia must intentionally focus on
the largest demographic segment of the world in order to address the
steadily increasing "digital divide
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/digital_divide>." The offline work is
geared to expand the reach of the collective knowledge and broaden
participation in the project. /
Best -
Jessie
[0]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs#Campus_Program
[1] http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline_Projects
On 4/13/2011 5:41 AM, Bishakha Datta wrote:
> Dear Gokul,
>
> As I understand it, we need to use a mix of online and offline methods
> to realize our mission: "Imagine a world in which every single human
> being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our
> commitment."
>
> Given this, I don't see why the spread of this knowledge through CDs
> and PediaPress books would be against the wiki movement - am not
> suggesting replacing the use of wikis or online methods, but adding to
> or supplementing these through CDs/books/offline methods etc.
>
> "Investing in offline products to broaden the movement's reach to
> populations who will remain disconnected from the Internet" is one of
> the planks of the strategic plan [2] currently being implemented. This
> is already happening in some projects, including Wikipedia for Schools.
>
> Cheers
> Bishakha
>
> [1]http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home
> [2]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/c/c0/WMF_StrategicPlan2011_spreads.pdf
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 11:44 AM, gokul das <gokuldas.1950 at gmail.com
> <mailto:gokuldas.1950 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Dear Bishakha,
>
> Are you not defeating the fundamentals of
> Wiki movement by your view point:Quote"There were questions about
> how to take this knowledge to colleges in the state without access
> to the internet or to computers."Defend.
>
> Gokul
>
> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 10:27 AM, jayanta nath
> <jayantanth at gmail.com <mailto:jayantanth at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> Apologies for this big delay in reporting - between work,
> travel and the rest of my life, I've been in a spin.
>
> As previously announced on this list, Sanhita, a gender
> resource centre in Kolkata had offered to host a half-day
> session on 'Gender, Information and Technology' to explore,
> understand and plan how women's studies departments in
> Kolkata's colleges might create content related to
> 'gender/women's studies/women' on Bengali wikipedia, for use
> by colleges across West Bengal (and of course, by anyone else).
>
> The workshop was held on 18 March at the Seagull Media
> Resource Centre
> <http://www.seagullindia.com/samrc/facilities.html> where the
> Kolkata wiki10 celebrations had been held in January - Sanhita
> took on the venue rental and snack costs. Sanhita currently
> works with 18 women's colleges in Kolkata and West Bengal: it
> creates and distributing information resources in Bengali on
> women/gender. It would like to collaborate with a
> technological platform such as Bengali wikipedia to further
> its goal.
>
> Biswarup Ganguly, Jayanta Nath, Arnab Dutta and Rimi
> Chatterjee were the wikipedians from Kolkata who led this
> workshop, along with Soma Sengupta of Sanhita. I was invited
> along to bridge the gap between gender studies and wikipedia.
> The entire workshop was conducted in Bengali; there were 30
> participants - 28 women and 2 men, quite the gender reverse of
> other workshops I've attended. Please see the photos
> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Kolkata_Mar2011>
> that Biswarup took to get a visual sense of this.
>
>
> Each of the 30 participants used English wikipedia - only 1
> knew of Bengali wikipedia; none used it. All the participating
> teachers are not necessarily intending to edit wikipedia
> themselves in Bengali, but are 'gatekeepers' to students. So
> they were more interested in a conceptual understanding of
> wikipedia during this preliminary planning session, than a
> hands-on editing demo.
>
> Given the academic nature of participants, the first question
> was about the authenticity of articles. How is this
> established? Along with talking about the need for references
> and citations and the no original research/verifiability
> principles, two examples [1} [2] were shown. The talk page on
> Babri Masjid [1] was also used to demonstrate one aspect of
> the editing process - how authenticity is constantly
> challenged and renegotiated. The page on Begum Rokeya [2]
> attracted considerable interest, since she was a pioneering
> figure in undivided Bengal to whom this group could relate.
> The lack of citations about her was brought up, and the oral
> citations project [3] was cited.
>
> In a similar vein, the following pages were also discussed in
> detail: Feminism portal [4], Gender Studies category [5] and
> Gender Studies project page [6] - to see if something similar
> could be launched in Bengali wikipedia with those present and
> others who had expressed interest via email.
>
> Since some of those present saw themselves as advocates, we
> clarified that wikipedia is not an advocacy platform, it is a
> knowledge platform - and discussed NPOV etc in this context.
>
> There were questions about how to take this knowledge to
> colleges in the state without access to the internet or to
> computers. We discussed the creation of offline CDs and
> PediaPress books, using online content.
>
> All in all, there was great excitement around the prospect of
> collaboratively creating gender-related content on Bengali
> wikipedia - Arnab and Jayanta demonstrated this. Rimi spoke
> about how she uses wikipedia with her students, while Biswarup
> did a quick demo of Commons.
>
> All of us felt "a positive energy" (to quote Rimi), specially
> about the "practical concrete questions about next steps"
> (Jayanta). One disability rights activist from an NGO called
> Sruti had suggestions for improving said page in Bengali
> wikipedia - and
> Sanhita confirmed that several participants emailed back the
> next day with good feedback.
>
> Hopefully, with this optimistic start, this will now go places
> - and contribute not just to Bengali wikipedia, but also to
> reducing the overall gender gap. A special thanks to Jayanta,
> Arnab, Biswarup, Rimi, and Soma for excellent coordination,
> planning, camaraderie and teamwork to make this workshop a
> grand success.
>
> Cheers
> Bishakha
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babri_masjid
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum_Rokeya
> [3]
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/01/12/new-wikimedia-fellow/
> [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Feminism
> [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Gender_studies
> [6]
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Gender_Studies
>
>
>
>
>
>
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--
Jessie Wild
Special Projects Manager
Global Development
Wikimedia Foundation
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