[Wikimediaindia-l] [Press]: Angry with Wikileaks, Indian Union minister for law and justice Veerappa Moily "lashes against Wikipedia"

[Srikanth Lakshmanan]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 14:10, Gautam John <gautam at prathambooks.org> wrote:

> On 30 March 2011 11:49, Srikanth Lakshmanan <srik.lak at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Getting sick of this popular "urban legand". Why dont we run a site
> notice
> > banner for "atleast India" alone for 2 months. """ Please Note :-
> Wikipedia
> > and Wikileaks are 2 different things""" and link to a detailed note.
>
> Srikanth, to be fair, I think he does see it as two different things
> or so the quote implies. What he might incorrectly allude to is a
> linkage between the two but his criticism of Wikipedia is the model of
> knowledge creation.


At best it could have been the usual misqouting / edit cuts and he might
have told about Wikipedia at all. Here is what I think would have happened.
He would have got some points to speak from one of his under secretaries who
would have sourced it from his/her junior[who might have given what
Wikipedia is rightly and might have given it for context due common "wiki"
in the name, but might have been lost in grapevine] and hence the miinster
would have got it wrong.

Though what the minister was being quoted is a valid criticism against
Wikipedia, in all possibilities Wikipedia was never his target. I mentioned
this confusion as Urban legand since even few of "Software Engineers" I met
dont know the differences. A banner campaign will not only clarify Wikipedia
is not associated with Wikileaks, but would also create a larger
awareness(includes media and people from all walks of life) on Wikimedia
movement(which is lacking to a large extent even among regular readers of
Wikipedia in India). Banner campaign is very effective in India and we could
see that in Wiki 10 celebrations.

Regards,
Srikanth L
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