[Wikimediaindia-l] AUTHOR OF ARTICLE IN NYT Re: Wikimediaindia-l Digest, Vol 38, Issue 14
Outofindia
outofindia at gmail.com
Tue Aug 9 12:11:52 UTC 2011
Fantastic article on citation and the written word......."When Knowledge
Isn't Written, Does It Still Count? That NYT article was wrtitten By NOAM
COHEN<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/noam_cohen/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
I almost sent a congratulations to Tinu Cherian for a well written piece!
I fully support other forms of audio and other visual references and have a
few decades worth of material I'd be happy to share when I find the time to
index it well and convert it to a digital format.
Regards
Harriet
See our work at: monsoongreay.wordpress where we use digital stories to
record childrens voices.
Harriet Vidyasagar
www.outofindia.net
www.womenofindia.net
INDIA: 91-99011 66276
USA: 1-301-649-2240
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 2:31 AM, <
wikimediaindia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Send Wikimediaindia-l mailing list submissions to
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>
> 1. Re: [Press] : New York Times : "When Knowledge Isn?t Written,
> Does It Still Count?" (Mahitgar from Marathi Wikipedia)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 12:01:49 +0530 (IST)
> From: Mahitgar from Marathi Wikipedia <mahitgar at yahoo.co.in>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Press] : New York Times : "When
> Knowledge Isn?t Written, Does It Still Count?"
> To: wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Message-ID: <1312871509.19166.YahooMailRC at web137618.mail.in.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Dear All
> NewYork Times : "When Knowledge Isn?t Written, Does It Still Count?"
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/business/media/a-push-to-redefine-knowledge-at-wikipedia.html
>
>
> This is a nice article.
>
> 1) On mr-wiki I am trying to convince the community to be more flexible on
> info
> coming from rural Maharashtra. For an example in an village related
> articles
> some one writes about which farm produce which educational institutions are
> there, we need not ask reference for such aspects.In rural India as there
> are
> good institution which we can take note of but risk part is there are
> equal or
> more number of fake institutions and they may end up taking undue benefit
> of
> having mention of their institution in fooling rest of the ignorant
> population
> that is the risk.
>
> 2) Way back on strategy wiki I did put a Proposal:Audio/visual
> Presentation
> Competition While there I did not get anticipated support but I wish
> Wikimedia
> India Chapter and/Or India program and Indic wikipedians revisit this
> proposal
>
>
> http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Audio/visual_Presentation_Competition
>
>
> Regards
> User Mahitgar from Marathi Wikipedia
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: "wikimediaindia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org"
> <wikimediaindia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org>
> To: wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Sent: Tue, 9 August, 2011 6:04:19 AM
> Subject: Wikimediaindia-l Digest, Vol 38, Issue 13
>
> Send Wikimediaindia-l mailing list submissions to
> wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> wikimediaindia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
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>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Wikimediaindia-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: [Press] : New York Times : "When Knowledge Isn?t Written,
> Does It Still Count?" (wheredevelsdare at hotmail.com)
> 2. Re: [Press] : New York Times : "When Knowledge Isn?t Written,
> Does It Still Count?" (Naveen Francis)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 05:00:39 +0000
> From: <wheredevelsdare at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Press] : New York Times : "When
> Knowledge Isn?t Written, Does It Still Count?"
> To: Wikipedia India Mailing List
> <wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <SNT117-W52033416B0BB25ED58A517BD200 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
>
> Sure - offline or non-english refs are accepted AGF!
>
> From: naveenpf at gmail.com
> Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 07:31:47 +0530
> To: wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Press] : New York Times : "When
> Knowledge
> Isn?t Written, Does It Still Count?"
>
> Nice article ... :)
>
> Hi Tinu,
>
> One doubt in referencing; can we keep text indic languages as reference in
> English wikipedia ?
>
>
>
>
> Naveen Francis
>
>
> Signature powered by
>
> WiseStamp
>
> On 8 August 2011 23:13, CherianTinu Abraham <tinucherian at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> NewYork Times : "When Knowledge Isn?t Written, Does It Still Count?"
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/business/media/a-push-to-redefine-knowledge-at-wikipedia.html
>
>
>
>
>
> ?MAKING fun of Wikipedia is so 2007,? a French journalist said recently to
> Sue
> Gardner, the executive director of the foundation that runs the Wikipedia
> project.
>
>
>
>
> And so Ms. Gardner, in turn, told an auditorium full of Wikipedia
> contributors
> and supporters on Thursday in Haifa, Israel, the host city for the seventh
> annual Wikimania conference, where meetings and presentations focus on the
> world?s most used, and perhaps least understood, online reference work.
>
>
>
>
> Once routinely questioned about its reliability ? what do you mean, anyone
> can
> edit it? ? the site is now used every month by upwards of 400 million
> people
> worldwide. But with influence and respect come responsibility, and lately
> Wikipedia has been criticized from without and within for reflecting a
> Western,
> male-dominated mindset similar to the perspective behind the encyclopedias
> it
> has replaced.
>
>
>
>
> Seeing Wikipedia as The Man, in so many words, is so 2011.
> And that?s a problem for an encyclopedia that wants to grow. Some critics
> of
> Wikipedia believe that the whole Western tradition of footnotes and sourced
> articles needs to be rethought if Wikipedia is going to continue to gather
> converts beyond its current borders. And that, in turn, invites an entirely
> new
> debate about what constitutes knowledge in different parts of the world and
> how
> a Western institution like Wikipedia can capitalize on it.
>
>
>
>
> Achal Prabhala, an adviser to Ms. Gardner?s Wikimedia Foundation who lives
> and
> writes in Bangalore, India, has made perhaps the most trenchant criticism
> in a
> video project, ?People are Knowledge,? that he presented in Haifa (along
> with
> its clunky subtitle, ?Exploring alternative methods of citation for
> Wikipedia?).
>
>
>
>
> The film, which was made largely with a $20,000 grant from the Wikimedia
> Foundation, spends time showing what has been lost to Wikipedia because of
> stickling rules of citation and verification. If Wikipedia purports to
> collect
> the ?sum of all human knowledge,? in the words of one of its founders,
> Jimmy
> Wales, that, by definition, means more than printed knowledge, Mr. Prabhala
> said.
>
>
>
>
> In the case of dabba kali, a children?s game played in the Kerala state of
> India, there was a Wikipedia article in the local language, Malayalam, that
> included photos, a drawing and a detailed description of the rules, but no
> sources to back up what was written. Other than, of course, the 40 million
> people who played it as children.
>
>
>
>
> There is no doubt, he said, that the article would have been deleted from
> English Wikipedia if it didn?t have any sources to cite. Those are the
> rules of
> the game, and those are the rules he would like to change, or at least
> bend, or,
> if all else fails, work around.
>
>
>
>
> ?There is this desire to grow Wikipedia in parts of the world,? he said,
> adding
> that ?if we don?t have a more generous and expansive citation policy, the
> current one will prove to be a massive roadblock that you literally can?t
> get
> past. There is a very finite amount of citable material, which means a very
> finite number of articles, and there will be no more.?
>
>
>
>
> Mr. Prabhala, 38, who grew up in India and then attended American
> universities,
> has been an activist on issues of intellectual property, starting with the
> efforts in South Africa to free up drugs that treat H.I.V. In the film, he
> gives
> other examples of subjects ? an alcohol produced in a village,
> Ga-Sabotlane, in
> Limpopo, South Africa, and a popular hopscotch-type children?s game,
> tshere-tshere ? beyond print documentation and therefore beyond Wikipedia?s
> true-and-tried method.
>
>
>
>
> There are whole cultures, he said, that have little to no printed material
> to
> cite as proof about the way life is lived.
> ?Publishing is a system of power and I mean that in a completely pleasant,
> accepting sense,? he said mischievously. ?But it leaves out people.?
>
>
>
>
> But Mr. Prabhala offers a solution: he and the video?s directors, Priya Sen
> and
> Zen Marie, spoke with people in African and Indian villages either in
> person or
> over the phone and had them describe basic activities. These recordings
> were
> then uploaded and linked to the article as sources, and suddenly an article
> that
> seems like it could be a personal riff looks a bit more academic.
>
>
>
>
> For example, in his interview with a South African villager who explained
> how to
> make the alcoholic drink, morula, she repeatedly says that it is best if
> she
> demonstrates the process. When the fruit is ready, said the villager,
> Philipine
> Moremi, according to the project?s transcript of her phone conversation,
> ?we pry
> them open. We are going to show you how it is done. Once they are peeled,
> we
> seal them to ferment and then we drink.? The idea of treating personal
> testimony
> as a source for Wikipedia is still controversial, and reflects the concerns
> that
> dominated the encyclopedia project six years ago, when arguably its very
> existence was threatened.
>
>
>
>
> After a series of hoaxes, culminating in a Wikipedia article in 2005 that
> maligned the newspaper editor John Seigenthaler for no discernible reason
> other
> than because a Wikipedia contributor could, the site tried to ensure that
> every
> statement could be traced to a source.
>
>
>
>
> Then there is the rule ?no original research,? which was meant to say that
> Wikipedia doesn?t care if you are writing about the subway station you
> visit
> every day, find someone who has written reliably on the color of the walls
> there.
>
>
>
>
> ?The natural thing is getting more and more accurate, locking down
> articles,
> raising the bar on sources,? said Andrew Lih, an associate professor of
> journalism at the University of Southern California, who was an early
> contributor to Wikipedia and has written a history of its rise. ?Isn?t it
> great
> we have so many texts online??
>
>
>
>
> But what works for the most developed societies, he said, won?t necessarily
> work
> for others. ?Lots of knowledge is not Googleable,? he said, ?and is not in
> a
> digital form.?
>
>
>
>
> Mr. Lih said that he could see the Wikipedia project suddenly becoming
> energized
> by the process of documenting cultural practices around the world, or down
> the
> street.
>
>
>
>
> Perhaps Mr. Prabhala?s most challenging argument is that by being
> text-focused,
> and being locked into the Encyclopedia Britannica model, Wikipedia risks
> being
> behind the times.
> An 18-year-old is comfortable using ?objects of trust that have been
> created on
> the Internet,? he said, and ?Wikipedia isn?t taking advantage of that.?
> And, he
> added, ?it is quite possible that for the 18-year-old of today that
> Wikipedia
> looks like his father?s project. Or the kind of thing his father might be
> interested in.?
>
>
>
>
> Ouch.
>
>
>
> RegardsTinu Cherian
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>
> Wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> Wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 10:33:57 +0530
> From: Naveen Francis <naveenpf at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Press] : New York Times : "When
> Knowledge Isn?t Written, Does It Still Count?"
> To: Wikimedia India Community list
> <wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CABrp+ik2hKVqL5sOL=9vTV+O59Fr8G3URz_4pr=7LMWfiySkjQ at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
> Thanks Pranav !!
>
>
>
> Naveen Francis
> Signature powered by
> <
> http://www.wisestamp.com/email-install?utm_source=extension&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=footer
> >
>
> WiseStamp<
> http://www.wisestamp.com/email-install?utm_source=extension&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=footer
> >
>
> On 9 August 2011 10:30, <wheredevelsdare at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Sure - offline or non-english refs are accepted AGF!
> >
> > ------------------------------
> > From: naveenpf at gmail.com
> > Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 07:31:47 +0530
> > To: wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Press] : New York Times : "When
> Knowledge
> > Isn?t Written, Does It Still Count?"
> >
> >
> > Nice article ... :)
> >
> > Hi Tinu,
> >
> > One doubt in referencing; can we keep text indic languages as reference
> in
> > English wikipedia ?
> >
> > Naveen Francis
> > Signature powered by
> ><
> http://www.wisestamp.com/email-install?utm_source=extension&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=footer
> >
> >
> >WiseStamp<
> http://www.wisestamp.com/email-install?utm_source=extension&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=footer
> >
> >>
> > On 8 August 2011 23:13, CherianTinu Abraham <tinucherian at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > *NewYork Times : "When Knowledge Isn?t Written, Does It Still Count?"*
> >
> >
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/business/media/a-push-to-redefine-knowledge-at-wikipedia.html
> >l
> >
> >
> > *?MAKING fun of Wikipedia is so 2007,? a French journalist said recently
> > to Sue Gardner, the executive director of the foundation that runs the
> > Wikipedia project.*
> > *
> > *
> > *And so Ms. Gardner, in turn, told an auditorium full of Wikipedia
> > contributors and supporters on Thursday in Haifa, Israel, the host city
> for
> > the seventh annual Wikimania conference, where meetings and presentations
> > focus on the world?s most used, and perhaps least understood, online
> > reference work.*
> > *
> > *
> > *Once routinely questioned about its reliability ? what do you mean,
> > anyone can edit it? ? the site is now used every month by upwards of 400
> > million people worldwide. But with influence and respect come
> > responsibility, and lately Wikipedia has been criticized from without and
> > within for reflecting a Western, male-dominated mindset similar to the
> > perspective behind the encyclopedias it has replaced.*
> > *
> > *
> > *Seeing Wikipedia as The Man, in so many words, is so 2011.*
> > *
> > *
> > *And that?s a problem for an encyclopedia that wants to grow. Some
> critics
> > of Wikipedia believe that the whole Western tradition of footnotes and
> > sourced articles needs to be rethought if Wikipedia is going to continue
> to
> > gather converts beyond its current borders. And that, in turn, invites an
> > entirely new debate about what constitutes knowledge in different parts
> of
> > the world and how a Western institution like Wikipedia can capitalize on
> it.
> > *
> > *
> > *
> > *Achal Prabhala, an adviser to Ms. Gardner?s Wikimedia Foundation who
> > lives and writes in Bangalore, India, has made perhaps the most trenchant
> > criticism in a video project, ?People are Knowledge,? that he presented
> in
> > Haifa (along with its clunky subtitle, ?Exploring alternative methods of
> > citation for Wikipedia?).*
> > *
> > *
> > *The film, which was made largely with a $20,000 grant from the Wikimedia
> > Foundation, spends time showing what has been lost to Wikipedia because
> of
> > stickling rules of citation and verification. If Wikipedia purports to
> > collect the ?sum of all human knowledge,? in the words of one of its
> > founders, Jimmy Wales, that, by definition, means more than printed
> > knowledge, Mr. Prabhala said.*
> > *
> > *
> > *In the case of dabba kali, a children?s game played in the Kerala state
> > of India, there was a Wikipedia article in the local language, Malayalam,
> > that included photos, a drawing and a detailed description of the rules,
> but
> > no sources to back up what was written. Other than, of course, the 40
> > million people who played it as children.*
> > *
> > *
> > *There is no doubt, he said, that the article would have been deleted
> from
> > English Wikipedia if it didn?t have any sources to cite. Those are the
> rules
> > of the game, and those are the rules he would like to change, or at least
> > bend, or, if all else fails, work around.*
> > *
> > *
> > *?There is this desire to grow Wikipedia in parts of the world,? he said,
> > adding that ?if we don?t have a more generous and expansive citation
> policy,
> > the current one will prove to be a massive roadblock that you literally
> > can?t get past. There is a very finite amount of citable material, which
> > means a very finite number of articles, and there will be no more.?*
> > *
> > *
> > *Mr. Prabhala, 38, who grew up in India and then attended American
> > universities, has been an activist on issues of intellectual property,
> > starting with the efforts in South Africa to free up drugs that treat
> H.I.V.
> > In the film, he gives other examples of subjects ? an alcohol produced in
> a
> > village, Ga-Sabotlane, in Limpopo, South Africa, and a popular
> > hopscotch-type children?s game, tshere-tshere ? beyond print
> documentation
> > and therefore beyond Wikipedia?s true-and-tried method.*
> > *
> > *
> > *There are whole cultures, he said, that have little to no printed
> > material to cite as proof about the way life is lived.*
> > *
> > *
> > *?Publishing is a system of power and I mean that in a completely
> > pleasant, accepting sense,? he said mischievously. ?But it leaves out
> > people.?*
> > *
> > *
> > *But Mr. Prabhala offers a solution: he and the video?s directors, Priya
> > Sen and Zen Marie, spoke with people in African and Indian villages
> either
> > in person or over the phone and had them describe basic activities. These
> > recordings were then uploaded and linked to the article as sources, and
> > suddenly an article that seems like it could be a personal riff looks a
> bit
> > more academic.*
> > *
> > *
> > *For example, in his interview with a South African villager who
> explained
> > how to make the alcoholic drink, morula, she repeatedly says that it is
> best
> > if she demonstrates the process. When the fruit is ready, said the
> villager,
> > Philipine Moremi, according to the project?s transcript of her phone
> > conversation, ?we pry them open. We are going to show you how it is done.
> > Once they are peeled, we seal them to ferment and then we drink.? The
> idea
> > of treating personal testimony as a source for Wikipedia is still
> > controversial, and reflects the concerns that dominated the encyclopedia
> > project six years ago, when arguably its very existence was threatened.*
> > *
> > *
> > *After a series of hoaxes, culminating in a Wikipedia article in 2005
> that
> > maligned the newspaper editor John Seigenthaler for no discernible reason
> > other than because a Wikipedia contributor could, the site tried to
> ensure
> > that every statement could be traced to a source.*
> > *
> > *
> > *Then there is the rule ?no original research,? which was meant to say
> > that Wikipedia doesn?t care if you are writing about the subway station
> you
> > visit every day, find someone who has written reliably on the color of
> the
> > walls there.*
> > *
> > *
> > *?The natural thing is getting more and more accurate, locking down
> > articles, raising the bar on sources,? said Andrew Lih, an associate
> > professor of journalism at the University of Southern California, who was
> an
> > early contributor to Wikipedia and has written a history of its rise.
> ?Isn?t
> > it great we have so many texts online??*
> > *
> > *
> > *But what works for the most developed societies, he said, won?t
> > necessarily work for others. ?Lots of knowledge is not Googleable,? he
> said,
> > ?and is not in a digital form.?*
> > *
> > *
> > *Mr. Lih said that he could see the Wikipedia project suddenly becoming
> > energized by the process of documenting cultural practices around the
> world,
> > or down the street.*
> > *
> > *
> > *Perhaps Mr. Prabhala?s most challenging argument is that by being
> > text-focused, and being locked into the Encyclopedia Britannica model,
> > Wikipedia risks being behind the times.*
> > *
> > *
> > *An 18-year-old is comfortable using ?objects of trust that have been
> > created on the Internet,? he said, and ?Wikipedia isn?t taking advantage
> of
> > that.? And, he added, ?it is quite possible that for the 18-year-old of
> > today that Wikipedia looks like his father?s project. Or the kind of
> thing
> > his father might be interested in.?*
> > *
> > *
> > *Ouch.*
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Regards
> > Tinu Cherian
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> > Wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing
> > list Wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> > Wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> >
> >
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