[Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia.IN the news - Mumbai Hindustan Times, 13th Feb 2011 (CherianTinu Abraham)

[BalaSundaraRaman]

Valid point, Ashwin. But, I don't know how we can avoid such attribution 
insufficiency totally.

In the early days (of Tamil Wikipedia), despite repeated emphasis on not 
mentioning individual names, the writers like to mention stories around 
individuals. Though the community was understanding, those in the spotlight felt 
bad about it. 


That's why, whenever a press enquiry comes to me, I put a disclaimer similar to 
the one below (this one was in my email to Radhika of HT):
First of all, as with anything related to Wikipedia,  both these projects are 
owned by the entire community and the names  mentioned here are the only ones I 
can attach to specific tasks. Both  projects had significant participation from 
at least a dozen Tamil  Wikipedians.

I also insist on or directly copy all the concerned wikians on such requests. 
Despite that they like to use names. But, with such practices, we can at least 
include more contributors. Particularly in long format articles (like the one on 
Indian Express eye magazine), the writers have room to mention many people.

We also faced the downside of not putting any name forward in one instance. 
During the collaboration with Tamil Nadu government, while a few of us directly 
interacted with the government, many others worked online for the contest. So, 
we repeatedly emphasised not putting the select few names anywhere. But, during 
the announcement ceremony, the IT minister personally wanted us to be thanked 
and sent a written note to the person on the podium. In the confusion, he 
thanked some non-wikipedians for the whole effort!

- Sundar

 "That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for 
the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture



----- Original Message ----
> From: Ashwin Baindur <ashwin.baindur at gmail.com>
> To: wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Sent: Thu, February 17, 2011 8:56:03 AM
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia.IN the news - Mumbai Hindustan Times, 
>13th Feb 2011 (CherianTinu Abraham)
> 
> The Pune chapter gave details of all its multi-facetted incentives for
> W10  including Wikimedia Commons,Marathi Wikipedia. article improvement
> program  etc to Radhika Raj, the reporter of Hindusthan Times but she
> chose to  highlight Wikipedia for Schools aspect only and it appears
> that the Pune guys  are doing nothing else. Wikipedia for Schools is
> being done by Nikhil Sheth  alone not the whole Pune community so to
> say, so its unfair to both - Nikhil  who has to share credit and the
> community which was selectively ignored. Imho  there is a trend of
> giving too much emphasis on "Wikipedia Warriors" and less  on the work
> being done which is not healthy.
> 
> I didn't want to actually  mention this lest people consider it as a
> case of sour grapes, but I felt we  needed to view this piece of
> publicity from all aspects, not just by being  glad at being portrayed
> in the press.
> 
> Warm regards,
> 
> Ashwin  Baindur
> ------------------------------------------------------
> 
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