[Wikimediaindia-l] Fwd: troubleshooting Wikipedia for schools offline project

Thu Jan 20 02:29:31 UTC 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nikhil Sheth <nikhil.js at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 7:21 AM
Subject: troubleshooting Wikipedia for schools project
To: info at soschildren.org
Cc: wikimedia-in-mum <wikimedia-in-mum at lists.wikimedia.org>

HI,

I'm trying to spread wikipedia for schools offline edition in my
city/country. Got some interested people to join in the project at the
wikipedia
10th anniversary meetup at Mumbai,
India.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Mumbai/WikipediaDay2011>,
i've included them in cc.

I've set up a mirror website hosting the large file in parts because several
people had complained they couldn't download the original thing.
http://wikipediaforschools.4shared.com

I wasn't aware of your webpage back then so used a .ZIM file that I found on
http://www.kiwix.org : schools-wikipedia-full-20081023-rc5.zim

I hope I'm not hosting the wrong file??

Could you please give me this info:
In the press releas<http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/archive/2008/10/2008-wikipedia-for-schools>e,
a .Torrent file is linked :
http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/static/schools-wikipedia-full-20081023.tar.gz.torrent
I need to know what are the contents of this .tar.gz file.
Is it for windows or for linux? Is it the same .zim file only? Is it using
kiwix or something else? Is it pre-indexed?

On a blog post I created for this, someone posted a link to a large .zip
saying this is a pre-indexed packaged version:
http://download.kiwix.org/portable/wikipedia_en_for_schools.zip

So is that the one I should be going with? The current one I'm hosting needs
a small first-run procedure that has to be done on every computer I put it
in, of opening the .zim file from kiwix and then indexing it. Also, I had
problems with some older computers - the indexing never took off and we are
limited to click-browsing on those computers.

Moving on from the downloading aspect, I want to set up a wiki page that
will track the proliferation of Wikipedia for Schools. But I can't figure
out where to create it, what name to give it and other things. So need a
little help there. (wikipedians, you can help?)

And finally, could you connect me with more people in India who are
associated with this project or may be interested in networking on it? Is
there a facebook page on this? Mind if I set one up?

Cheers,
Nikhil Sheth
+91-966-583-1250
Teach For India Fellow 2011-13
Pune, India
www.nikhilsheth.tk
Find me on: Twitter <http://twitter.com/nikhiljs> |
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nikhil Sheth <nikhil.js at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 11:00 AM
Subject: Re: Nikhil, a news tip
To: Simon Owens <simon.bloggasm at gmail.com>

Hi Simon,

Great job done!!
This video already got posted in the main blog
post<http://technosophi.blogspot.com/2011/01/10th-anniversary-of-wikipedia-mumbai.html>that
reported on this event and I'll share this too, as did something else
I've set up and would need some help in:

Wikipedia For Schools - offline version

We want to put wikipedia for schools offline version in each and every
school and non-internet-connected computer in India. I've implemented it at
one under-resourced school for poor kids in Pune (my hometown) and the
results are amazing - kids who have never seen the internet are suddenly
surfing through all sorts of articles using this - it's empowering in a way
that has never happened before.

Many people were having problems downloading the 2.6 GB Wikipedia for
Schools .ZIM file from Kiwix, so after the meetup, I've split it into 100MB
parts and uploaded here. Also made a torrent which I'm hosting (need more
seeders!)

http://wikipediaforschools.4shared.com

The README file there has instructions on how to go about it.

So I need help in spreading the word. I want to set up a website (preferably
a wiki only) where people can enlist the schools where they pledge to
install this, and then come back and confirm when the deed is done. I also
want to reach out to computer vendors to install it in all computers that
they sell or repair. I'd start off with India but this can go international
as well.

Let me know if you can help with this project, and feedback if I'm doing
something wrong.

And Kudos for the amazing video again!

Cheers,
Nikhil Sheth
+91-966-583-1250
Pune, India
www.nikhilsheth.tk
Find me on: Twitter <http://twitter.com/nikhiljs> |
Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/nikjs>|
LinkedIn <http://in.linkedin.com/in/nikhiljs> | Google
<http://www.google.com/profiles/nikhil.js>|
RangDe<http://www.rangde.org/investor/nikhilsheth>
Join me on: Pune Documentary
Club<http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=138497769525636>| Let's
Do it Pune <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lets-do-it-Pune/103857326346659> |
Toastmasters in
Pune<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Toastmasters-in-Pune/148767611833746>

On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 3:40 AM, Simon Owens <simon.bloggasm at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hey Nikhil,
>
> I read your post the other day mentioning Wikipedia's 10th anniversary. I
> work with a group that teamed up with Jimmy Wales to create a video on the
> state of Wikipedia (Wales narrates the video). We depicted an animated
> history of the site and detailed where Wales would like to see it head in
> the future:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXD1TRGafQ0
>
> Anyway, I thought this was something you and your readers would find
> interesting.
>
> Take care,
> Simon
>
>
>
> --
> http://bloggasm.com
> http://twitter.com/simonowens
>
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