Centre for Internet and Society

Indian English Wikipedian Nvvchar completes 1500 Did You Know articles

tito — 2017-06-28T10:03:41Z

Indian English Wikipedian Nvvchar has completed 1500 Did you know articles. This is the second highest on English Wikipedia.

Indian English Wikipedian User:Nvvchar has completed 1500 Did you know (DYK) articles. DYK is a short piece of fact (hook) taken from Wikipedia's newest content and is showcased on the "Did you know" section on the Main Page. On English Wikipedia 18-24 hooks appear on the Main Page every day. Since mid-2012 Nvvchar has been diligently working on this DYK project and has created (or expanded) articles on a very wide range of subjects such as religion, history, geography, arts, literature, women's achievement, education etc.

On 27 July 2011 Nvvchar completed 500 DYK articles. On 23 August 2013 his 1000th DYK appeared on the Main Page. The DYK nomination and review process need a lot of effort and sometimes it takes weeks to fully finish the process. However after the 1000th DYK in August 2013, in just 2 years 8 months Nvvchar touched another milestone. On 26 April 2016, his 1500th DYK appeared on the Main Page of Wikipedia and the fact was from an article Rudra Mahalaya Temple, an ancient ruined temple located Sidhpur in the Patan district of Gujarat.

A few Wikipedians congratulated him for this achievement. User:Ijon, a Hebrew Wikipedian, appreciated him saying-

Thank you for the persistent and quiet work you do to contribute much-needed knowledge to Wikipedia!

User:Victuallers, an English Wikipedia administrator, wrote on Nvvchar's talk page-

Lets just guess that the average DYK gets read by 100 people - that means you have a readership of 150,000 people. I think its more like 1000 per DYK appearance so that means that your words have been read by over 1 million people and thats just on the first day of publication! There must be multi-millions of people who know a little more about Asian settlements, buildings, people and artefacts then they would have done without the efforts of Nvvchar. . . . . . Great respect for your efforts. Thanks from the Wiki and its many readers

As of 9 May 2016, Nvvchar has 1503 DYKs.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/nvvchar-1500-dyk

Freedom in Feb — an awareness increasing campaign

tito — 2017-06-28T09:59:29Z

You have heard about the Ice bucket challenge (and the rice bucket challenge). You may have heard about the 100happinessdays challenge (and its Wikipedia version 100wikidayschallenge). You may have heard and participated in the November no shaving challenge. Some of these campaigns are organized to increase awareness about different social issues. Now here the Centre for Internet and Society, India brings to you a campaign called Freedom In Feb.

Freedom in Feb (FiF, hashtag #freedominfeb) is a campaign to be conducted in the month of February. The objective of the initiative is to increase awareness of free content and free licenses. The name of this campaign “Freedom in Feb” was coined by Sunil Abraham, the Executive Director of The Centre for Internet and Society, India.

Event dates

The first iteration of the event will take place between 0:00 UTC on 1 February 2017 and 23:59 UTC on 28 February 2017.

Rules

The rule to participate in this challenge is simple:

The works you will create or publish in February you have to release those under free licenses such as the Creative Commons licenses or under public domain.
The content includes your blog post, writing, image on Facebook, or Instagram, or your Tweets (no “all rights reserved” please :)).
If releasing all content under free licenses is not possible, please try to release as much as content under the free licenses this February.

So, this Feb, please release your works under the free licenses, and encourage others to do so as well.

Participate

If you are interested to participate in this challenge or want to know more, please fill this form, or you can also send us an email to this address sunil@cis-india.org and/or tito@cis-india.org. Please include "Freedom in Feb" in your email subject line.

FAQ

Question: Which free license should I choose?
Answer: You can choose any free license. We suggest you to choose a license that allows remixing, and using for commercial purpose such as CC BY-SA 4.0. You may also choose a license CC BY-NC 2.0, but that’s not really free.

Question: I am a professional and depend on my works (photography, music, writing) on living. Do I need to release all my creations under the free licenses?
Answer: We understand this situation, but we request you to release as much as or some content under the free licenses or public domain.

More FAQs to be added

Keep in touch

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/freedominfeb/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/freedominfeb
Freenode IRC: freedominfeb
Public forum: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/freedominfeb (anyone can post here by sending an email to: freedominfeb@googlegroups.com, but you need to join the group to view posts and other
Hashtag: #freedominfeb

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/freedominfeb

Free Knowledge and Indian Government Work

tito — 2017-06-28T10:02:00Z

Indian Government works are not available under free and open licenses. On the other hand a large number countries such as Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Israel, Macedonia, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Venezuela etc. have adopted the Creative Commons and other free licenses. The works by the US Federal Government automatically go into public domain. This article promotes the idea that the Government works should be freely licensed, wherever possible and applicable.

Part 1: Free Knowledge

Free knowledge movement is a worldwide movement that creates and tries to get works under free and open licenses. It claims that knowledge is a common human property, and must be easily, freely accessible.

While discussing the topic "Access to knowledge: a basic human right", American scientist and researcher Jack Andraka feels:

Access to knowledge is, you know, a basic human right. Knowledge should not be commoditized; it wants to be free.

The Open Definition defines the term “Open Knowledge” in Open Definition 2.0 as:

"Knowledge is open if anyone is free to access, use, modify, and share it — subject, at most, to measures that preserve provenance and openness."

All open content must be a) available under free licenses, b) accessible as a whole, and c) should be in open format (see more details)

A big name in the world of free content is (of course) Wikipedia, where you can use, share, remix content from the site under the Creative Commons licenses. There are many organizations, networks and groups working to get more and more content under free and open licenses such as Creative Commons (text, audio, video, image), Free and Open Source Software or FOSS (software), Open design principle (machine, engineering), Open Access (academic works) etc.

Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights suggests that education should be free. Right to information is also a human right and Article 27 of the declaration states:

(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

These are just not possible unless knowledge /information is easily and preferably freely accessible to everyone without restrictions. If the first barrier is accessibility, i.e, not having enough digital content or information or content behind paywall, then the second barrier is its openness. Just having access to some web pages is not enough, it also requires rights like free using, sharing, remixing, Unrestricted content can be utilized in the best way.

Part 2: Indian Government Work

Indian Government websites are not freely licensed. In section 2(k) of Indian Copyright Act, 1957 the meaning of “Government work” is explained:

"Government work" means a work which is made or published by or under the direction or control of—
(i) the Government or any department of the Government;
(ii) any Legislature in India;
. . .

Read Indian Copyright Act, section 2(c) here.

Indian Copyright Act section 17(d) informs about the “First owner of copyright” of a Government work:

in the case of a Government work, Government shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright therein;

Read section 17(d) here.

Section 28 is about “Term of copyright in Government works”. It states:

In the case of Government work, where Government is the first owner of the copyright therein, copyright shall subsist until [sixty years] from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the record is first published.—In the case of Government work, where Government is the first owner of the copyright therein, copyright shall subsist until [sixty years] from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the record is first published."

Read section 28 here

Section 52 of the act allows some “fair use” and informs how content can be used for research, education, review, criticism and some other purpose. The lengthy copyright section may be read here. However, it does not make the content free. You are not allowed to remix the work or use for commercial purpose. You can not freely use, modify, distribute it.

Now let’s have a look at a few Government websites and their license details pages.

Indian Prime Minister’s official website

(http://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/website-policies)

In this website the copyright policy page informs:

Material featured on this website may be reproduced free of charge. However, the material has to be reproduced accurately and not to be used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context. Wherever the material is being published or issued to others, the source must be prominently acknowledged. However, the permission to reproduce this material shall not extend to any material which is identified as being copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the department/copyright holder concerned.

A screenshot may be seen below:

Here-

“Wherever the material is being published or issued to others, the source must be prominently acknowledged.” -- this part of the policy is similar to the Creative Commons licenses, where the owner or author of a work must be given attribution.

but,

“has to be reproduced accurately” -- it prohibits remix or modification works,
“not to be used in a derogatory manner” -- it is unclear that what is “derogatory manner”! Can it be used for criticism?

Indian Vice President’s official website
(http://vicepresidentofindia.nic.in/website-policies)

This is similar to the Prime Minister’s website policy and does not allow remix, commercial use etc. See screenshot:

Indian President’s official website
(http://presidentofindia.gov.in/copyright-policy.htm)

Although the Vice President’s website allows some fair use, the Indian President’s official web portal’s license is different and does not allow to reproduce the work “partially or fully”. The copyright policy states:

This contents of this website may not be reproduced partially or fully, without due permission from The President of India, If referred to as a part of another publication, the source must be appropriately acknowledged. The contents of this website can not be used in any misleading or objectionable context.

We have shown 3 example above, but it is more or less similar in all government web portals.

Part 3: Government works — Worldwide

It might be interesting to note that unlike India, a large number of countries publish their Government works under open licenses or public domain. We’ll discuss only a few here:

United States

The works by the US Federal Government automatically go into public domain.
The White House website and third party content such as text or speeches by the first lady are licensed under CC SA 3.0 US license. U.S.
On 18 June, 2013, Barack Obama and other G7 leaders endorsed the Open Data Charter. Open Data Action plan is licensed under CC0.
Several other works such as works created by New York State Senate, works created by the State of Virginia are also under different creative commons licenses. Details may be seen here.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, Open Government License (OGL) is used for Crown Copyright works published by the UK government. Since 2001, some works by the UK government were available under the Click-Use license. This license was replaced by OGL in 2010. The first version of OGL was released on 30 September 2010. OGL is compatible with the CC licenses. OGL allows to:

copy, publish, distribute and transmit the Information,
adapt the Information,
exploit the Information commercially and non-commercially for example, by combining it with other Information, or by including it in your own product or application.

However,

Attribution must be given to with source link, which is similar to the creative commons licenses.
Some documents such as the British passport, military insignia, property rights, including patents, trademarks, and design rights, personal information in data don’t come under OGL.

More about the Open Government License may be seen here.

France

France government’s website http://www.gouvernement.fr/ is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 FR license. The English version of the policy page may be seen here.
France government’s cultural department’s website http://www.culture.fr/ is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 FR.
The Culture Communication website http://www.culturecommunication.gouv.fr/ is also licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 FR.

Russian Federation

Content of the website http://kremlin.ru are under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. License policy page may be seen here. Many other Russian government works are under different open licenses, details may be seen here.

Netherlands

The Dutch government official website http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/ is licensed under CC 0. All content of this website is under public domain, unless any other license is specified.

Bulgaria

The President of Bulgaria’s official website https://www.president.bg/ is licensed under CC BY ND 2.5 Bulgaria.

Croatia

Croatian Government website http://otvorenikod.nsk.hr/ is licensed under CC BY SA 3.0 Croatia.

The Long list

More than 30 countries have adopted and publishing their works under the Creative Commons and other free licenses. Other the above mentioned countries, the list include countries like Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala, Israel, Macedonia, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Taiwan, Ukraine, Venezuela etc. Other than the counties, several international organizations such as the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) endorsed the free license concept and have adopted the same. See a long list of countries using free licenses here.

Last line

It is unfortunate that the Indian Government works are not under free licenses, however it would be great if the Government rethinks and relicense their general content under the free licenses. This will help not only the movement, but the content itself can be utilized in a much better and broader way.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/free-knowledge-and-indian-government-work

Dalit History Month 2017 edit-a-thon in Delhi, India

tito — 2017-06-21T06:09:39Z

Dalit History Month edit-a-thon was conducted in Delhi on 20 May 2017. Here is a report.

A Dalit HIstory Month edit-a-thon was conducted Delhi, India on 20 May, 2017. This event was organised by Whose Knowledge?. A member from the Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, attended the event as a resource person. The history of Dalit movement, and their knowledge are not very-well represented on Wikipedia, and it is essential that attempts are made to bridge such gaps. This edit-a-thon was such an initiative. On 15 April, this year, an edit-a-thon was conducted in Berkeley, US, and the Delhi edit-a-thon was followed by that.

14 editors participated in the edit-a-thon (not counting the resource persons). In the introduction speech Wikimedian and the primary co-ordinator of the event Inaaya explained the details the importance, scope and objectives of the edit-a-thon. This was followed by hands' on editing activities. A few participants were new to Wikipedia, and they created their accounts. Discussions took place to understand the gaps, and the difficulties. It was noticed that finding references to create or expand articles is sometimes a big challenge. Other than referencing, other topics such as Wikipedia manual of style, images, image license policy etc. were also discussed. Although it was a one-day workshop, the aim was to continue it after the event as well, so the participants were encouraged to continue editing. We have statistics of last 1 month, and it shows that in this time period: 45 articles were edited, 11 articles were created, and more than 10 thousand words were added.

There are plans to conduct follow-up Wiki-events. A few students of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, showed interest to form Wikipedia club in their campus. Although, the edit-a-thon was not very big in scale and size, taking such an initiative itself is challenging, and hopefully such initiatives will help reduce the knowledge gap on Wikipedia.

Image source

File:Dalit History Month header.jpg, from Wikimedia Commons, author: Bilqischondol, file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/dalit-history-month-2017-edit-a-thon-in-delhi-india

CIS-A2K Utilisation Certificate financial year 2018-2019

tito — 2020-03-10T08:25:21Z

This is the utilisation certificate of the Centre for Internet and Society, for the year 1 July 2018 - 30 June 2019.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/cis-a2k-utilisation-certificate-financial-year-2018-2019

CIS-A2K Finance Officer: Call for application

tito — 2019-03-07T08:46:29Z

The Access to Knowledge team of the Centre for Internet and Society is seeking applications for the position of Finance Officer, to support its Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) Programme. The job application is open to women only.

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is seeking applications from prospective candidates who identify themselves as female, for the position of Finance Officer, to support its Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) Programme. The job application is open to women only because we feel that a woman Finance Officer will contribute more towards bridging the gender gap in the Wikimedia movement and also it will bring a gender balance in the team. The position is full time and will be based in CIS’ Bangalore office No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru, 560071. Finance Officer will work closely with the CIS-A2K Team and would report to the Executive Director/any supervisor in Team.

Position Summary

As a Finance Officer, your job will be to support the A2K Programme and the community members in financial related aspects such as filing the reimbursements, maintaining the books of accounts etc.

Characteristics of the Programme Officer

High level of commitment: The Finance Officer should believe in the values of CIS and Wikimedia projects, exude enthusiasm for the mission and can powerfully embody and communicate the mission.
Intellectual curiosity and flexibility: Must enjoy tackling difficult, ambiguous problems and able to incorporate new knowledge into how one approaches situations and generates solutions, loves learning from others while expanding intellectual horizons.
Open and transparent: Have a high level of integrity and be comfortable working in a highly transparent fashion.
Strong cultural competency: Able to navigate in a global movement and on a global team in addition to navigating the complexity of India.
Willing to travel: The Finance Officer must regularly travel within India during the events to help the community members to file the reimbursements.

Responsibilities

You will be responsible for the overall finance-related aspects of Team that include maintaining the books of accounts, filing the reimbursements.
Assistance in book-keeping to include monthly expenditure, financial statements, accounts receivable, accounts payable, disbursement journal, trial balance, tax reports, etc.
Work in preparation of budgets, proposals, objectives, audits, annual reports.

Requirements

Prior experience of working in a collaborative community, preferably an open movement.
Must be fluent in English and at least in one Indian language.
Minimum of 1-year experience in clerical/bookkeeping/accounting field.
Ability and flexibility to deal with pressure and deadlines.
Good knowledge of formulas in excel sheets.
Basic knowledge of Tally software.

Wikimedians will be given priority.

Location: The position is based out of the CIS’s Bangalore office.

Remuneration: Compensation structure will be determined by the level of expertise, experience and current remuneration.

Contract period

Initial contract will be till 30 June 2019, following the current work-plan of the A2K team

Apply

To apply, please send your resume and cover letter to Tito Dutta (tito+fo@cis-india.org) (please do not miss the +fo part in the email address). The last date of application is 18 March 2019.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-a2k-finance-officer-call-for-application

CIS-A2K Communication Officer position

tito — 2019-06-04T06:45:28Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is seeking applications only from prospective candidates who identify themselves as women, for the position of Programme Officer (Communications, the position is also known as Communication Officer), to support its Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) Programme. The job application is open to women only because we feel that a woman communications person will contribute more towards bridging the gender gap in the Wikimedia movement by emphasising on gender-sensitive communication apart from contributing internally for bringing a gender balance in the team.

Context of the CIS-A2K programme

As an affiliate of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia and Wikipedia’s sister project, we design and implement different projects with an aim to create high quality content and cultivate new contributors to Wikimedia projects. The projects will be premised on themes and seek to create a multilingual repository of knowledge using Wikimedia projects as a knowledge platform. You are encouraged to deeply engage with the CIS-A2K work plan before making the application. You will work cohesively with the Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia India Chapter to meet specific goals of each language community in India. You will be a part of a small team of 5 to 10 doing high visibility and high impact work. Please learn more about CIS-A2K here.

Position summary

As a Programme Officer, your job will be to support the Team’s larger goals -- growth of Indian-language Wikipedias and other Wikimedia projects (hereinafter Wikimedia projects), and the contributor communities (hereinafter Community). Your primary responsibility will be to support the Programme Associates -- that spearhead our on-ground programmatic activities -- with regular communications with the community and the world outside.

The position is full time and will be based in CIS’ Bengaluru office. Programme Officer will work closely with CIS-A2K Team (hereinafter Team) and would report to the Executive Director/any supervisor in Team.

Characteristics of the Programme Officer

High level of commitment: The Programme Officer should believe in the values of CIS and Wikimedia projects, exude enthusiasm for the mission and can powerfully embody and communicate the mission.
Intellectual curiosity and flexibility: Must enjoy tackling difficult, ambiguous problems and able to incorporate new knowledge into how one approaches situations and generates solutions, loves learning from others while expanding intellectual horizons.
Open and transparent: Have a high level of integrity and be comfortable working in a highly transparent fashion, open to input and feedback, a proactive and candid communicator who wants people to know what s/he is doing and isn't afraid to bring others in when things are off-track or when you need help and should able to handle criticism in a mature fashion.
Community builder: It is essential that the Programme Officer sees herself/himself as a partner to and supporter of the Wikimedians who have and will continue to be the leaders in building the Wikimedia projects. The Programme Officer must be willing and able to work with a diverse array of people, many of whom come from non-traditional backgrounds and have a fervent commitment to Wikimedia movement’s community-led nature.
Strong cultural competency: Able to navigate in a global movement and on a global team in addition to navigating the complexity of India.
Partnership developer: Able to initiate, negotiate and operate partnerships that advance the Wikimedia mission in Indic languages and English (as relevant to India) with a wide range of institutions across the public, NGO, universities, philanthropic and private sector.
Willing to travel: The Programme Officer must regularly travel within India to engage with Wikimedia communities and partner with institutions.

Responsibilities

You will be responsible for the overall communications of Team that include storytelling in the form of interviews, blogs, opinion pieces in newspaper/other platforms, regular coverage in both Indian language and English media, and anything beyond.
You will be exploring widely from conventional to new media to spread the stories of the hundreds and thousands of volunteers that make the Indian-language Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects such great knowledge repositories.
Creating original stories of challenges and learning, and successes of Wikimedia community in general and the ones that we closely work with in particular.
Function as an interface between A2K team and the community, and help the team better work collaboratively with the community.
Sharing the work of the community and A2k team in a regular basis in the monthly newsletters and other places.
Providing training on effective communications to the communities in a need basis, and supporting them to independently tell their own stories in their own languages.
Announcement of programmatic activities in the form of announcements, blogs and reports, and microblogging (social media, etc.).

Interviewing Wikimedians under the ambit of the WikipediansSpeak [1] project and beyond, and share the story of the Wikimedia community widely in the media

Required skills

Graduate with a strong track record of success in high performance organisations, preferably in non-profits.
Experience could be during studies or after, primarily in blogging, writing organisation reports, managing social media for organisations, interviewing and covering people’s stories in mainstream media.
Prior experience of working in a collaborative community, preferably and open one like Wikipedia and in online.
Good understanding of the basics of organisational programme design and management.
Strong understanding of the Internet and the forces that underpin the success of Wikipedia. Active participation as a Wikimedia volunteer would be an asset, though not a prerequisite (must be prepared to demonstrate knowledge of how Wikipedia works in interviews).
Experience working in a global, multicultural and diverse team environment will be preferred.
Must be fluent in English and at least in one Indian language.
A good understanding of the cultural and knowledge universe of the Indian language communities.

Location: The position is based out of the CIS’s Bangalore office.

Remuneration: Compensation structure will be determined by the level of expertise, experience and current remuneration.

To apply, please send your resume to Tito Dutta (tito+po2019@cis-india.org) by 4 June 2019. Please do not miss the +po2019 part in the email, that is an email filter for us)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/cis-a2k-communication-officer-position

CIS-A2K Co-Facilitates Punjabi Wikimedians Wikimedia Strategy Meeting

tito — 2017-08-01T08:02:14Z

On 15 July 2017, Punjabi Wikimedia User Group, conducted Punjabi Wikimedia Strategy Meeting at Patiala. CIS-A2K members Tanveer Hasan and Tito Dutta attended the event as co-facilitator and resource person. The event was followed by a meeting on the next day when active Punjabi Wikimedians and CIS-A2K representatives discussed different plans and strategies for the Punjabi Wikimedian projects in the coming months. Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is conducting, encouraging to conduct and supporting Strategy Meetings in different countries of the world. Wikimedia Foundation relates

these meetings to strategy for the Wikimedia movement, strategy for entities such as the Wikimedia Foundation and Chapters, and roadmaps for individual Projects (e.g., Wikidata or Wiktionary or Wiki Loves Monuments). In India, several communities have conducted or have shown interest to conduct Wikimedia Strategy Meetings. Punjabi Wikimedians, a WMF recognized user group, conducted their Strategy Meeting at Punjabi University, Patiala on 15 July 2017. Punjabi Wikimedians Satdeep Gill and Stalinjeet were the primary hosts. Around 16 people from different domains of knowledge, including active Punjabi Wikimedians participated in the meeting. Punjabi Wikimedians invited CIS members Tanveer Hasan and Tito Dutta to co-facilitate the event. CIS-A2K helped Punjabi Wikimedians to plan the meeting structure and anchor the discussion.

On 16 July, a meeting between Punjabi Wikimedians and CIS-A2K was conducted. The aim of the meeting was to plan Punjabi Wikimedians' events and activities for the next one year. 8 active Punjabi Wikimedians and Tanveer Hasan and Tito Dutta, from CIS-A2K participated in this meeting. A good number of important topics were discussed during the meeting such as―

Should Punjabi Wikimedians register themselves as an organization and what are advantages and disadvantages of registering as an organization,
How can CIS help Punjabi Wikimedians as Fiscal Sponsor to route grants from the Wikimedia Foundation,
Wikidata Workshop (North India)― how can Punjabi Wikimedians contribute to and be part of it.
Regional Train-the-Trainer and MediaWiki Training for Punjabi Wikimedians.
Wikisource digitization

CIS-A2K provided suggestions and inputs on these topics. CIS-A2K thanks Punjabi Wikimedians for hosting the meetings.

Image credit

File:Punjabi Wikimedians Strategy Salon - 15 July 2017 01.jpg by Satdeep Gill from Wikimedia Commons, image licensed under theCreative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/cis-a2k-co-facilitates-punjabi-wikimedians-wikimedia-strategy-meeting

Call for Position - Programme Officer (Communication) - Access to Knowledge

tito — 2018-11-02T09:37:09Z

We are inviting applications for the position of a Programme Officer (Communication) to join the Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team at the Centre for Internet and Society. Please find below the description of the position, the eligibility criteria, and the application process.

To contribute to, support, and lead public communication of the work of the CIS-A2K team, we are looking for a creative, dedicated, and enterprising individual to join the team as Programme Officer (Communications). Please note that women and trans candidates, especially those from socio-economically marginalised communities, and women who are returning to work after a hiatus will be given preference.

Project Background

Responsibilities

Competencies

Required Skills and Experience

Desirable Skills and Experience

Location and Remuneration

Application Process

Project Background

The CIS-A2K team is supported by Wikimedia Foundation to work towards catalysing the growth of the open knowledge movement in south Asia and in Indian languages. The current work plan (2018-19) of the CIS-A2K team is focused on working towards creating an inclusive Wiki atmosphere in India, with emphasis on creating safe spaces, and promoting activities to bridge gender gap in Wiki projects across languages. Further, CIS-A2K facilitates exchange and incubation of ideas amongst Indian language Wikimedia communities, which contributes to the growth of these community and enables emergence of community leaders. During the current year, the A2K team is investing resources and energy on 4 programs/ideas that we believe are going to be 'triggers of change': 1) Focus Project Area, 2) MediaWiki Training, 3) Bridging Gender Gap, and 4) Wikisource Conference India. Please find a detailed description of our proposed activities during 2018-19 on our Meta-Wiki page.

Responsibilities

The CIS-A2K team is primarily based in the Bangalore office of CIS, and the Programme Officer (Communication), henceforth POC, will be expected to work out of the same office. Members of this team are also based in Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Hyderabad (Telangana), and Sangli (Maharashtra), and the POC will be expected to work closely with them - generally remotely, and sometimes by travelling to these locations

To support and drive outreach of the work being done by the CIS-A2K team, the POC will be responsible for the following tasks:

Public communication (60% of monthly work): POC will be responsible for the overall public-facing communication of the work and activities of the CIS-A2K team. This includes planning, driving, and carrying out multi-media documentation of ongoing activities of the team; announcement of programmatic activities in terms of authoring press releases, opinion pieces, short updates, and social media posts, including helping CIS-A2K team members with doing the same; co-authoring and editing the major reports prepared by the team, primarily for submission to Wikimedia Foundation; managing and posting on the Twitter account of the CIS-A2K team; and preparing and publishing a monthly newsletter to share the work of Indian Wikimedia communities and the CIS-A2K team. The CIS-A2K team usually conducts 4 events each month on average.
Innovative media projects (25% of monthly work): POC may explore widely from conventional to new media forms to create original stories of experiences, challenges, and learnings of members of Indian Wikimedia communities in general, and communities engaged with by the CIS-A2K team in particular. This may include storytelling in the form of interviews, blogs, audio and video productions including those native to social media platforms, with a focus on producing content in multiple Indian languages, often with support from CIS-A2K team and members of Wikimedia communities. The focus of these media projects will be on the stories of the volunteers who edit and contribute to Indian language Wikimedia projects, as well as gaps and futures thereof. This task includes interviewing Indian Wikimedians under the ambit of the WikipediansSpeak project.
Liasoning and training (15% of monthly work): POC will function as an interface between A2K team and the Indian (and global) Wikimedia communities as the first point of contact for incoming communications, and inform the CIS-A2K about requests and concerns shared by members of these communities. POC may also be invited to provide training on effective communications for members of Indian Wikimedia communities, as needed, and to support them to independently tell their own stories in their languages.

Competencies

Core Competencies

Accountability
Awareness and sensitivity regarding issues of gender and sexuality
Critical appreciation of open knowledge initiatives
Effective communication
Inclusive collaboration
Intellectual curiosity and openness
Respect for diversity
Strong cross-cultural competency

Functional Competencies

Ability to learn-at-work, especially about the Wikimedia ecosystem
Highly organised, motivated, and able to take initiative
Experience of managing public communications and outreach, including managing mailing lists and social media accounts
Experience of producing multimedia content, including writing and web-based content

Required Skills and Experience

Languages

Excellent communication skills (written and oral) in English
Working knowledge (or better) of at least one other Indian language

Professional

Two years of working experience in an Indian/global organisation with diverse members, and in a position that involved managing communication and producing text and media content

Technical

Basic understanding of functioning of Wikipedia, and ideally of other Wikimedia projects too
Basic ability to produce audio/video content, including recording and editing

Desirable Skills and Experience

Active user of free and open source software
Experience of actively contributing to Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia and others
Experience of being a member of an Indian Wikimedia community, or taking part in Wikimedia-related events
Experience of being part of a free and open source software / open knowledge community

Location and Remuneration

The position is based out of the Bangalore office of CIS.

Monthly remuneration for the position will be Rs. 40,000-45,000 (including taxes) based on the level of experience and previous salary.

Application Process

We invite interested (and eligible) candidates to apply for the position by sending us the following documents to tito@cis-india.org, with “Application for Programme Officer (Communication)” as the subject, by Sunday, October 28, 2018:

Cover letter (2 pages): This should introduce your relevant academic, professional, and other experiences, and describe the kind of work you look forward to do as part of the CIS-A2K team. We strongly recommend reading the 2018-19 work plan of the CIS-A2K team while writing this cover letter, as well as for preparation for the interview to follow (if you are shortlisted for interview).
CV: This should provide details of your academic, professional, and other achievements
Work samples: The position will require you to produce effective writing outputs in a regular manner. Please share 2 samples of your writing (published or unpublished). In case you have produced media works (photographs, audio/video interviews, short films, etc.), please share 1 or 2 samples of the same. While sharing media works, please share the URL to the same and not the actual files.

We will prepare a short list of candidates, on the basis of the submitted applications, and inform you of our selection decision by Friday, November 02.

The shortlisted candidates will be interviewed by the CIS team, including members of the CIS-A2K team. If needed, there will be two rounds of interview.

We will take the final hiring decision by early November, inform the shortlisted candidates accordingly, and invite the selected person to join our from December 1, 2018.

Please do not hesitate to write to us at tito@cis-india.org for any clarification regarding this.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/jobs/call-for-position-programme-officer-communication-a2k-2018

Access to Knowledge 2019–2020 Utilisation Certificate

tito — 2020-09-30T22:15:27Z

Access to Knowledge 2019–2020 WMF APG Utilisation Certificate

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/access-to-knowledge-201920132020-utilisation-certificate

A Shortcut to Freedom

tito — 2017-06-28T09:58:47Z

In our everyday life we need access to knowledge and information, we need books (and magazines, newspapers), movies (and documentaries, animations), music for education and entertainment purposes. Now, a delighting fact is almost everything we need, from a 1965 book to the latest Bollywood movie’s MP3 song, is available on the web. You knock the door, and it opens. Why should we care for free knowledge then? We have a got “a shortcut to freedom”.

Scenario 1
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalaithaa died on 5 December 2016. Kamlesh, a college student from Chennai wants to post a few photos of the leader on his Facebook wall and page paying his tribute to her. He quickly searches on Google, finds a few photos, and posts on the wall.

Scenario 2
Nilima, a young girl from Mumbai, wants to use a latest Bollywood movie song as her mobile ringtone. She too searches on Google, and quickly finds the movie song with many options such as 64 kbps, 128 kbps, remix, reprise and a few issues such as misleading download buttons, pop-up advertisement windows etc. She selects one and puts it as her mobile ringtone.

Scenario 2a
A few days later, Madhuri, a friend of Nilima finds her mobile ringtone. Madhuri requests Nilima to send a copy of the music piece, and Nilima sends it over her mobile bluetooth.

Scenario 3
Lokesh Sanyal, a school teacher from Darjeeling, West Bengal, needs a book for his studies. He first goes to his local library and also asks his friends, but fails to get a copy of the book. Now, before buying a copy of the book, he thinks to check the world wide web to see if a free PDF copy the book is available, and hurrah!, he gets the book from Torrents or some other site.

We have almost everything we require. . .
If we make a list of our requirements of content such as movies, music, books, magazines, games, softwares, we’ll find almost everything is available on the web. You just need spend some time, (be careful about malicious web pages and downloads) and you will get what you want. It might be the movie released just a week ago, or a book published in 1990. It might a photograph of your favorite actress, or music piece of Amzad Ali Khan. Whatever we want, we get.

. . . but
Let’s ponder upon these questions:

Are you using a Windows operating system in your laptop or computer? Is the copy of the Windows OS original (if you are unsure about it then did you buy a copy of the OS with registration key or installed from a CD or pendrive given by someone freely)?
How many (hundred) times you have downloaded images, videos, music, games from the web without checking or knowing its license details?
Do you know that everytime you are sharing some music or video over your mobile bluetooth, there is a possibility that you are violating some copyright and which might be punishable?

The World Wide Web is not free. You get content, but with those come a large number of restrictions. Knowingly or unknowingly we violate copyright everyday. So what should we do?

Of course we have a shortcut — illegal downloading, piracy, as we know that no one really cares. We can ignore everything and carry on.
Or, there is a second option, join the free and open knowledge movement and try to get more and more content under the free licenses.

One option is easy, needs no hard work, on the other hand the second option is difficult to follow, needs a lot of hard work, although that should be the process. It’s completely upto you that which option would you prefer.

Image credit

Source: WIkimedia Commons, Author: W.carter, License: CC SA 4.0 International

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-shortcut-to-freedom

100wikidays: the journey so far

tito — 2017-06-28T10:04:33Z

In this article we'll chat with Bulgarian Wikipedian Vassia Atanassova (User:Spiritia) on the journey of 100wikidays so far, initial difficulties, and participation of Indian Wikipedia communities in the challenge.

100wikidays is a personal Wiki challenge, in which a participant attempts to create at least one new article on Wikipedia, for 100 days in a row. This initiative is a brainchild of Bulgarian Wikipedian Vassia Atanassova (User:Spiritia) and it started on 16 January 2015. As of 22 November 2016, 194 Wikipedians have taken this challenge and 63 of them have successfully completed it. A delighting fact is a large number of Indian Wikipedians have participated in this initiative and successfully completed this challenge. In this blog post we’ll try to focus on the project and its influence on Indian Wikimedians.

Let’s start the conversation with Vassia Atanassova, (User:Spiritia), the editor who started this initiative.

CIS-A2K: First, we congratulate you for the success of 100wikidays. When you started this challenge in January 2015, did you think that one day it would become so big?

Vassia: No, actually I wasn’t completely sure that I myself will be able to complete it. :) The story behind the 100wikidays is that earlier in 2014 I had already tried the so called “100happydays” challenge, in which you prove that 100 days in a row you have found happiness, even in the smallest things, by posting a photo of what made you happy. Needless to say, I failed it, around the 11-th day, which according to statistics happens with 7 out of 10 people. :) So, when in the end of 2014 I got the idea of retrying the challenge, already only knew that happiness was obviously not “my cup of tea” :) so I had to try something I am good in and have more chances for success, like writing in Wikipedia. :) But back then, I didn’t believe that I will be able to finish it myself – it was such a crazy idea – and no, I had never planned it as anything bigger than my own personal challenge. :)

CIS-A2K: Let’s talk about the initial days. What were the difficulties you faced?
Vassia: As I had already failed the happy photography challenge before, I was really nervous in the beginning. The challenge – as the rules of the #100happydays postulate – requires you to make a public commitment and announce your daily progress, and this is very demanding. You commit in front of a community you care for and don’t want to lose your face, or disappoint them. For me, this is half of the difficulty – and half of the magic.

The other half, of course, is to really find the time to create a decent encyclopedic article every day. We are definitely not talking about long featured articles, of course, but decent articles, giving the basic necessary information about a topic, referenced with reliable sources. I am not really eager about the idea of #100stubdays, although, of course, I have also had extremely busy days when I am not able to produce anything longer than a stub.

Thus, one of the first lessons I had to learn from the challenge was how to find the right balance between the inborn perfectionism and the unavoidable time limitations. I think that everyone who commits to the challenge and doesn’t quit it immediately, has such a period of adapting one’s style of contributing, of rearranging life priorities, and stealing from oneself precious time that would otherwise spend with the family, with friends, for other hobbies, or simply for sleeping. Oh, sleeping, how much I started appreciate sleep after the beginning of the challenge! #100wikidays is famous for jokes related with sleep deprivation. :)

CIS-A2K: How did you promote this initiative among the Wikipedia communities around the world?
Vassia: Hmm… I didn’t! It all happened naturally, by word of mouth. It is editors who are promoting it by getting involved in the challenge, I am not doing anything special. 100wikidays is living its own life. :)

In the beginning friends of mine who followed my Facebook wall liked and sometimes commented on the posts with the new articles. It took about one month before the first follower appeared, one of the ex-students in my university course “Wikipedia and Wiki Technologies”, Vladislav Nedelev. About that time I decided to propose the idea of the #100wikidays as a topic for talk at Wikimania. Funny detail is that initially this talk proposal got rejected, and it took weeks before it was reevaluated and approved :)

In the meanwhile, in early March, the next follower, or “victim”, joined, and happily that one was Asaf Bartov, Wikimedia Foundation’s senior officer in emergent Wikimedia communities. He didn’t want to be alone in the trouble :))) so one day he posted on his wall the question “Who will be the first Indian Wikipedian to commit to #100wikidays?” And by the end of the day there were four people (you, Tito, included)!!! And it was amazing, absolutely mindblowing!

Asaf also proposed the idea of the Facebook group and the Meta coordination page, where people report their daily progress. In my opinion, he is the most efficient victims recruiter in the #100wikidays :)

As of today (22 November 2016) we have 194 “victims” from 54 language versions of Wikipedia – and several sister projects like Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wiktionary and Commons and about 1/3 of all who have started it, have also completed it successfully. So, yeah, somehow it really became a global thing :) And real life meetings very much helped for that. Nikola Kalchev’s lightning talk at the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin, my talks at Wikimania in Mexico, at the Central and Eastern European Meetup in Voore, and at WikiLive conference in Belgrade, Alex Stinson’s speech at WikiConference USA 2015, Asaf also. Everyone who has taken the challenge can become its ambassador.

CIS-A2K: Tell us about a few participants who performed really well in this challenge?
Vassia: Oh, there are so many wonderful editors in #100wikidays, so many examples to be followed, people who are trendsetters on their own! Of course, Antanana and Lord Bumbury, who couldn’t stop themselves after the 100-th day, and made more than 220 wikidays in a row, each of them! Armine, who is now doing her 5th run of #100wikidays. Adam Cuerden with his runs of #10commonsdays of restoring old photographs, pixel by pixel! Asaf, Rosiestep, Penny Richards, Patricio, Maor X, and others whose focus is solely on biographies of notable women. Mervat Salman who introduced the #WikiWomenWeeks driving even more attention to this topic. Everyone in the challenge has brought to it something new and unique. And the most beautiful of it all is when ideas spread virally among the #100wikidays community, and people inspire each other with their choice of articles, and the way they communicate them.

CIS-A2K: 100wikidays is a difficult challenge. If someone writes articles for 60 or 70 days in a row, and then for some reason fails to continue, would you call it a failure, or what would be your suggestions?
Vassia: Heh, my favourite question. :) The word “failure” does not exist in my #100wikidays vocabulary. If you quit before the end of the 100 days, or if it takes you more than 100 days to finish, you have still made contributions to Wikipedia and has allowed someone to learn from the free knowledge that you have shared with the world. :) I know, the challenge has rules that really seem to be discouragingly severe. And it is normal that not everybody opts for it. But once you dare to opt, in the FB group you receive enormous support and appreciation – every day, for every new article. Also, among the challenge rules, the last one is “Ignore All Rules”. So, it is only up to you to decide whether a missed day is really a failure or not. My advice to everyone in this situation is: continue as if nothing has happened and no one has noticed :)

CIS-A2K: Several Indian Wikipedia communities participated in 100wikidays. Tell us about the participation of Indian Wikipedians in this challenge.
Vassia: So far, there have been contributors in 9 Indian languages: Punjabi (17), Oriya/Odia (3), Telugu (4), Bengali (3), Tamil (5), Hindi (4), Kannada (1), Malayalam (8). Correct me if I am missing anything. :) The total figure makes Indians the most active participants in the challenge, globally, with Armenia scoring second with 27 editors by now. No less than 13 are the Indian alumni, so far, which is quite of a big percentage of all. And the projects covered are different, not just Wikipedia in all those different languages, but also Wikisource, Wiktionary. This is truly impressive because some of the sister projects, like Wikisource, are really very demanding in terms of human resources and time, and usually not so populated with editors, which makes it even a greater challenge to undertake #100wikidays there. And I can’t but mention the recent notable interest in the challenge, registered in Malayalam Wikipedia. I’d be really very happy to know that the challenge has helped for the substantial growth of their, and generally, to any language version of Wikipedia. :)

Credits

Image source: Wikimedia Commons, license: CC-BY-SA 4.0, author: Kacie Harold

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/100wikidays

Centre for Internet and Society

Indian English Wikipedian Nvvchar completes 1500 Did You Know articles

Freedom in Feb — an awareness increasing campaign

Event dates

Rules

Participate

FAQ

Keep in touch

Free Knowledge and Indian Government Work

Part 1: Free Knowledge

Part 2: Indian Government Work

Indian Prime Minister’s official website

Part 3: Government works — Worldwide

United States

United Kingdom

France

Russian Federation

Netherlands

Bulgaria

Croatia

The Long list

Last line

Dalit History Month 2017 edit-a-thon in Delhi, India

See also

Image source

CIS-A2K Utilisation Certificate financial year 2018-2019

CIS-A2K Finance Officer: Call for application

Position Summary

Characteristics of the Programme Officer

Responsibilities

Requirements

Contract period

Apply

CIS-A2K Communication Officer position

Context of the CIS-A2K programme

Position summary

Characteristics of the Programme Officer

Responsibilities

Required skills

CIS-A2K Co-Facilitates Punjabi Wikimedians Wikimedia Strategy Meeting

Image credit

Call for Position - Programme Officer (Communication) - Access to Knowledge

Project Background

Responsibilities

Competencies

Required Skills and Experience

Desirable Skills and Experience

Location and Remuneration

Application Process

Access to Knowledge 2019–2020 Utilisation Certificate

A Shortcut to Freedom

See also

Image credit

100wikidays: the journey so far

See also

Credits