The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
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Wikimania 2013: Wikipedians represent Indian Languages in Hong Kong
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimania2013
<b>The 7th, 8th and 9th of August 2013 saw over 600 Wikipedians across the world participating Wikimania at Hong Kong. The three day annual international conference for users and contributors of Wikipedia brought many debates about open educational research, open source technologies, gender gap, documenting the history of mankind in a free and open platform like Wikipedia and its sister sites in collaboration with Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums and all of these in 286 world languages. More and more volunteers are joining this movement and it is expanding the media of accessing and disseminating knowledge.
</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span id="docs-internal-guid-0678dac9-1578-bf89-b289-18949346d9c2">Here is a school teacher who lives in Salem, a small industrial town in Tamil Nadu. There lives a school teacher who was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Hong Kong long back. They have never met in real life but have been helping in correcting each others mistakes in Wikipedia articles. These two school teachers have taken their knowledge from the four walls of the classrooms to a larger audience of</span><a href="http://ta.wikipedia.org"><span> Tamil Wikipedia</span></a><span>. I then realized how language brings people together. This is what I heard from my inner voice when I met </span><a href="http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%A9%E0%AE%B0%E0%AF%8D:Parvathisri"><span>S.Parvathi </span></a><span>from Salem and </span><a href="http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%A9%E0%AE%B0%E0%AF%8D:HK_Arun"><span>H.K.Arun</span></a><span> from Sri Lanka during </span><a href="http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org"><span>Hong Kong Wikimania 2013</span></a><span>, an annual gathering of Wikipedia contributors.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span id="docs-internal-guid-0678dac9-1579-0dad-9740-452c9aae519f">Many still are not aware the existence of Wikipedias in Indian languages. There are 20 South Asian language Wikipedias with more than 2 lakh articles contributed totally by about 1500 voluntary contributors in all these languages. There are hundred more contributors like Arun and Parvathi who create new articles in Tamil Wikipedia, and rectify mistakes by new contributors.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian"><span>Wikipedians</span></a><span> are all volunteers who devote their time for building the greatest repository of knowledge on the internet. Wikipedia articles are free from any copyright infringement so anyone can freely access, share, make modifications and redistribute them. Wikipedians have been able to create this ecosystem of nurturing new editors by teaching them the process of encyclopaedic content generation which not only polishes their writing abilities, but strengthens their communication skills. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Wikimania is fun, it brings wikipedians across the globe speaking diverse languages under one roof where they meet each other and share their ideas and collaborate. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Over 600 wikipedians from various countries participated in this year’s Wikimania including </span><a href="http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wikimania2013#Attendees"><span>16 from India</span></a><span>. In the open world of Wikipedia collaboration always happen beyond borders; one </span><a href="http://ne.wikipedia.org"><span>Nepali</span></a><span> and four </span><a href="http://bn.wikipedia.org"><span>Bangla</span></a><span> Wikipedians from Bangladesh also joined the Indian Wikipedians to rejoice the triumph of the effort of all the volunteers from the subcontinent. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>The fun was not just limited in creating a wall of their dreams, ambitions and action plans to take their own language Wikipedia to more people or discuss how they could write articles that are important to each others languages. It went upto helping each other to fix problems in typing Indian languages and discussing success stories of successful workshops that resulted bring more student </span><span id="docs-internal-guid-0678dac9-1579-9d5b-64e9-70790c72feab">contributors. </span><a href="http://ne.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%AF%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%BE:Ganesh_Paudel"><span>Ganesh Paudel</span></a><span>, a Wikipedian from Nepal says, "My hometown is very close to India and we share the same script with Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit and Konkani. India and Nepal both have sizable population speaking Nepali, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Sanskrit, Bangla and Hindi. I’m personally interested to collaborate with Indians speaking these languages." I could see the glow in his eyes when he wrote and explained the beautiful curvature of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranjana_alphabet"><span>Ranjana</span></a><span> script to me.</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tinucherian"><span> Tinu Cherian</span></a><span>, another long term Wikipedian who was attending Wikimania for the third time was excitedly live-tweeting the happening at Hong Kong. When I asked how he is feeling after a short break he unfolded his hands and proudly said, "Wikipedia is like religion to me, once a Wikipedian, you are always a Wikipedian!". </span><a href="http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%8D:Netha_Hussain"><span>Netha</span></a><span>, a medical college student from Kerala spoke about bringing more women to contribute to Wikipedia. She calls </span><a href="http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%8D:Kavya_Manohar"><span>Kavya</span></a><span>, a college lecturer and Malayalam wikipedian who spoke about </span><a href="https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Women_and_non-conventional_education_-_A_study_from_Indian_cultural_context"><span>Women and non-conventional education</span></a><span> as one of the gems she has discovered in her personal journey. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Wikimania also has Sengai Podhuvan, one of the oldest Indian Wikipedians. His </span><a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/L11_1222_R5_DS/en/US"><span>appeal for Wikipedia fundraising</span></a><span> brought a lot of donations to Wikimedia Foundation. Dr. Podhuvan shared his story of learning using computer, Tamil typing and writing articles about Wikimania this year brought many academicians, education researchers, policy change makers and open source and open knowledge activists across the world to share their ideas, activities going across the world even while </span><a href="https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Women_and_non-conventional_education_-_A_study_from_Indian_cultural_context"><span>enjoying dinner</span></a><span> in the </span><a href="http://www.sky100.com.hk/"><span>100th floor</span></a><span>. </span></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimania2013'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimania2013</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2013-09-13T06:03:03ZBlog EntryWikimania 2013: The International Wikimedia Conference
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimania-2013
<b>Wikimania is the annual international conference of the Wikimedia movement. It's organized by a different local team each year. In 2013 the conference took place in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Wikimania allows the community and the general public to learn about and share their experiences with free knowledge initiatives all over the world. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.</b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_page">Click to read the details published on the Wikimania website</a>.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The previous conferences were held in <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2005.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2005:">Frankfurt, Germany</a> (2005), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2006:">Boston, USA</a> (2006), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2007:">Taipei, Taiwan</a> (2007), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2008:">Alexandria, Egypt</a> (2008), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2009:">Buenos Aires, Argentina</a> (2009), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2010:">Gdańsk, Poland</a> (2010), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2011:">Haifa, Israel</a> (2011), and <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2012:">Washington, D.C., USA</a> (2012).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Picture: <a class="external-link" href="http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_page">Wikimania 2013</a>. Official site, CC-BY-SA 3.0<span class="post-meta-key"></span><br /><br /></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimania-2013'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimania-2013</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-08-29T06:30:54ZNews ItemWiki's worth, on a different turf
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wiki-worth-different-turf
<b>An Indian duo–a programmer and a mathematician–have developed a tool to expose anonymous writers and cleanse Wikipedia of rogue editors</b>
<p>Bangalore-based Kiran Jonnalagadda, a Web programming guru, and Hans Varghese Mathews, a mathematician, are the new entrants to the emerging field of Wikipedia research. The duo is credited with building Wiki Analysis, a tool that helps researchers understand the growing phenomenon of astroturfing, the practice of faking grass-roots support on Wikipedia and other websites. Wikipedia is the first Google result for most searches and this has made it a popular destination for those trying to manipulate public opinion on the Internet. Corporations, governments and even pop artists have been caught astroturfing in the past.</p>
<p>Jonnalagadda and Mathews are among 34 researchers from 17 countries attending a two-day conference in Bangalore, WikiWars, which is concluding today. WikiWars is taking a fresh look at many different aspects of the world’s biggest encyclopaedia, the sixth most popular website on the Internet.</p>
<p>The first generation of astroturfing on Wikipedia has been, thus far, largely unsophisticated, with little attention paid to covering up digital evidence. Remember the campaign Avril Lavigne’s fans launched last year that turned her music video Girlfriend into the most viewed clip on YouTube? Wal-Mart Stores Inc. contracted its public relations firm Edelman to maintain a fake website called “Working Families for Wal-Mart”. They pretended to be ordinary citizens who opposed the views of the firm’s labour union.</p>
<p>It is well known that platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, with opaque management procedures, are susceptible to astroturf campaigns. Supporters of open licensing and peer production have always held that Wikipedia and other community-managed platforms are protected thanks to their transparency in policies and practices. But as far as Wikipedia researchers are concerned, the jury is still out.</p>
<p>Microsoft tried to pay technology blogger Rick Jelliffe to work on Wikipedia connected to OOXML (Office Open XML) during the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) approval process in an attempt to influence the global vote. OOXML was the new file format for MS Office documents that urgently needed approval to check the growing popularity of Open Office. A user called “Ril_editor”, active between September 2007 and May 2008, who claimed to be working out of Reliance Industries Ltd’s chief Mukesh Ambani’s offices, tried to expunge pages connected to negative publicity about Reliance. Scientologists were blocked by Wikipedia’s arbitration committee when they were found trying to systematically undermine Wikipedia’s NPOV (neutral point of view) policy. NPOV is Wikipedia’s particular spin on non-partisanship, providing equal space to all opinions. However, some Wikipedia researchers such as Geert Lovink, head of the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, and co-organizer of the WikiWars conference, believes that the dominance of English and textual citation requirements has meant that NPOV is never translated into practice.</p>
<p>An American team based out of the Santa Fe Institute, US, has developed WikiScanner, a public database of IP addresses that helps reveal the organizations behind anonymous edits on Wikipedia. WikiScanner has been used to expose the US Central Intelligence Agency’s manipulation of pages. WikiScanner doesn’t yet work for edits by authenticated users. The WikiScanner team has also developed another tool called Potential Sock Puppetry, which exposes those who use multiple user accounts from the same IP address. However, both tools could be circumvented by purchasing multiple data cards or getting people to work from public access points such as coffee shops and cyber cafés.</p>
<p>It is this gap the Indian duo’s tool tries to plug. The first version of their Wiki Analysis tool clusters users into potential lobbies based on the pages they edit within a date range. The tool’s next version will cluster users into lobbies based on the words they consistently add and delete across pages. Says Jonnalagadda, “Wikipedia is now close to a decade old and has many articles that have existed since its earliest days and have been edited by thousands of individuals.” It is now the primary encyclopaedic destination for Internet users, and that makes it a ripe target for astroturfing. At no point in the history of human civilization have so many collaborated over so long to produce one canonical document on any article of human knowledge.</p>
<p>“Wikipedia users rarely bother to check how a page was edited, but that information is all there, available to anyone who cares to look. We’re building the tools to help make sense of it,” Jonnalagadda says. Once Wiki Analysis is ready, you will be able to check if, for example, the editors of the climate change page on Wikipedia are more interested in ecology or energy.</p>
<p>Original article on <a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2010/01/12210114/Wiki8217s-worth-on-a-diffe.html">Livemint</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wiki-worth-different-turf'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wiki-worth-different-turf</a>
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No publishersunilOpenness2012-10-23T08:33:56ZNews ItemWiki Women's Workshop
http://editors.cis-india.org/events/international-womens-day-2014
<b>As part of the commemoration of the International Women's Day, International Centre Goa (ICG) in association with the Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge team is organising a Wiki Women’s Workshop on Sunday, March 9, 2014 from 3.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. at ICG – Dona Paula.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">8th March is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:International_Women%27s_Day">International Women's Day</a> and to celebrate, women in India are organizing edit-a-thons and meetups to create and expand articles of importance to women in Wikipedia in English and various Indian languages. The goal of the month-long event is to encourage more women to contribute to Wikipedia and increase representation of articles related to women in Wikipedia. The event aims at creating new articles, expanding the existing stubs and translating English articles to various <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Indo-Aryan_languages">Indic languages</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The main aim of the event is to get more women aware about Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. Participants would be guided on "How to contribute to Wikipedia?" by a hands-on session and make the knowledge available for free.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_Women%27s_Workshop_@_ICG.pdf">Click here to view the poster and registration details</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/events/international-womens-day-2014'>http://editors.cis-india.org/events/international-womens-day-2014</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessEvent2014-03-05T10:37:57ZEventWiki Women's Day in Goa
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-womens-day-in-goa
<b>International Women's Day (IWD), also called International Working Women's Day, is celebrated on March 8, every year. There were a series of Wikipedia events organised this year with the aim of increasing participation of women contributing to Wikipedia. One such event was organised by the Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society and the Wikimedia India Chapter at the Nirmala Institute of Education (NIE), a Secondary Teacher Education College in Panaji, Goa on March 8, 2013.</b>
<p align="JUSTIFY">NIE is a respected institution providing pre- and in-service teacher education to thousands of teachers and about a 100 of them (99 per cent of the participants being women) joined in to learn Wikipedia editing and increase women related content on Wikipedia.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Rohini Lakshane from the Wikimedia India Chapter and Nitika Tandon from Access to Knowledge, CIS lead the session jointly. The session began with the introduction of Wikipedia, Wikipedia volunteers, the five pillars, motivation of volunteers to contribute to Wikipedia tirelessly and a brief of different activities that are being organised to strengthen the Wikimedia movement in India. Most of the students and faculty members were curious about two main things:</p>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">How to integrate the new community of editors in Goa with the larger Indian and global community?</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">How can teachers and students use Wikipedia to advance students' knowledge and add useful content to Wikipedia?</li>
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<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/NethasVideo.png/@@images/7c6006be-6dee-4a10-b4bf-982ca38cf478.png" title="Netha's Video" height="247" width="330" alt="Netha's Video" class="image-inline" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">Participants watching Netha's video</p>
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<p>To answer the first part, participants were informed about regular Wiki meet ups in different cities, several city based and language based Wikipedia mailing lists where one can find volunteer friends, active use of user talk pages and village pumps, Wikimedia India Facebook page amongst many others.</p>
<p>To address the second part there was also a brief discussion about wiki project classroom coordination with specific examples from universities around the world. The teachers and faculty members will be sent a detailed outline of the program, list of universities with on-going projects, list of teachers who have used Wikipedia as a teaching tool and are willing to serve as a contact to help others set up a similar teaching courses.</p>
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<p align="JUSTIFY">The session was planned to go on until late evening with hands on editing in the computer lab. But unfortunately, we (Rohini and Nitika) were informed that the session will have to close before the scheduled closing time as participants had to leave. Except for two or three participants coming on stage and making their user accounts and another 3-4 article edits, we couldn't include more editing as a part of the outreach session, primarily due to time constraint. We're hoping that at a small percentage of participants would try actual editing at home and contribute to women related articles and some of them will be successful in using Wikipedia as a teacher's tool. We have their contact details and we'll try and monitor their on Wiki activities and provide them support whenever needed.</p>
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<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/NIEWikipediaWorkshop.png" alt="NIE Wikipedia Workshop" class="image-inline" title="NIE Wikipedia Workshop" /></th>
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<td style="text-align: center; ">A picture of participants doing Wiki editing at the NIE workshop in Goa</td>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-womens-day-in-goa'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-womens-day-in-goa</a>
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No publishernitikaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaFeaturedWorkshopOpenness2013-03-19T06:32:25ZBlog EntryWiki Winter Camp - Coverage in Sakshi
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/sakshi-december-31-2014-wiki-winter-camp
<b>Media coverage for the Wiki winter camp held at Andhra Loyola College.</b>
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<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/sakshi.png" alt="sakshi" class="image-inline" title="sakshi" /></th>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/sakshi-december-31-2014-wiki-winter-camp'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/sakshi-december-31-2014-wiki-winter-camp</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessTelugu WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2015-01-01T16:58:23ZNews ItemWiki Winter Camp - Coverage in Eenadu
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/eenadu-december-31-wiki-winter-camp
<b>Media coverage of Wiki Winter Camp held at Andhra Loyola College.</b>
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<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/eenadu.jpg" alt="eenadu" class="image-inline" title="eenadu" /></th>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/eenadu-december-31-wiki-winter-camp'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/eenadu-december-31-wiki-winter-camp</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessTelugu WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2015-01-01T17:17:42ZNews ItemWiki Rahasya: Panel Discussion on Suvarna News
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/suvarna-news-june-13-2013-wiki-rahasya-panel-discussion
<b>Dr. U.B.Pavanaja participated in a panel discussion around Wikipedia in general and about Kannada Wikipedia in specific. This was telecast by Suvarna News 24x7 (Kannada) TV channel on June 13, 2013.</b>
<h3>Videos</h3>
<p><b>Part 1 </b></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HeGts72SxiI" width="320"></iframe></p>
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<p><b>Part 2 </b></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/s6txDACzK8c" width="320"></iframe></p>
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<p><b>Part 3 </b></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VjQNQ9pKORg" width="320"></iframe></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/suvarna-news-june-13-2013-wiki-rahasya-panel-discussion'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/suvarna-news-june-13-2013-wiki-rahasya-panel-discussion</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaVideoOpenness2013-07-02T16:36:11ZNews ItemWiki Meet-up in Bangalore: Talk by Vishnu Vardhan
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wiki-meet-up-bangalore
<b>Vishnu Vardhan, Director of Access to Knowledge team at CIS has been invited by the Bangalore SIG Chair. Vishnu will speak on the Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) project. The talk is scheduled for February 25, 2013 at 2.00 p.m. in Bangalore.</b>
<h2>Agenda</h2>
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<li> Wikimedia Projects </li>
<li> Access to Knowledge by Mr.Vishnu Vardhan, Director A2K, CIS </li>
<li> Guest Talk by Mr.Joe Justice, Founder WikiSpeed & Mr.Vibhu Srinivasan, MD, Solutions IQ </li>
<li> Audience address by Chief Guest, Mr.KS Viswanath, Vice President, Industry Initiatives, NASSCOM </li>
<li> Networking </li>
</ul>
<h2>KS Viswanath</h2>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. K.S. Viswanathan, Vice President, Industry Initiatives, NASSCOM, has around 32 years of general management and leadership experience in the Indian business context, building key executive relationships and a strong customer capital in diverse business environment. His extensive work experience in the IT industry and social sector comprises of developing and executing operational strategies, managing customer engagement programs, and establishing models for customer acquisition and retention. Over the span of his career, Mr. Viswanathan has held strategic & leadership positions at Wipro, Dell, Azim Premji Foundation and Hilleman Laboratories. As the Head for India geography at Wipro Infotech (2003-2008), he led the positive transformation of and business landscape for Wipro in India. He was the first country manager for Dell in India in 2000 and was instrumental in establishing Dell’s direct business model in India. Mr. Viswanathan is a graduate from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (1979 batch). He holds a MBA in marketing from PSG College of Technology (1981 batch).</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Vishnu Vardhan</h2>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Vishnu Vardhan is the Programme Director-Access to Knowledge at CIS since February 2013. His experience spans across academics, industry (media) and not-for-profit sectors. Over the last 11 years he has worked in various capacities as researcher, grant manager, teacher, project consultant, information architect and translator. Prior to joining CIS, Vishnu managed the Art, Crafts and Culture portfolio of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT); where had spent 5 years in project conceptualization, management and assessment of quality and impact in the not-for-profit sector. Vishnu managed more than 30 projects and funds to the tune of Rs. 160 million. He also anchored SRTT’s automation and knowledge management activities. Vishnu worked as Research Coordinator at Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore where he a) coordinated the online M.A. in Cultural Studies; b) managed the Library Fellowship programme; c) conceptualized and coordinated national and international workshops and short-term courses in Media and Cultural Studies; and d) helped in building academic institutional partnerships. Vishnu is a superannuated doctoral candidate at the Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster and CSCS, Bangalore.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Joe Justice</h2>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Joe Justice (@WIKISPEED) Founder, CEO, WikiSpeed Joe's team tied for 10th place in the mainstream class of the 2010 Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize, a $10 million challenge for 100+ MPG automobiles. WIKISPEED now uses agile processes to solve problems for social good. Joe has spoken to audiences at TEDx, Denver University, University of California Berkley, Google, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary International, and others about social web application development, project methodology, and agile best practices. He is CEO of WIKISPEED and works at SolutionsIQ, a leading provider of Agile consulting, certified training, coaching, development, and Agile talent services, where he helps clients leverage Agile project management and team development methods to deliver solutions more reliably.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Vibhu Srinivasan</h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Vibhu Srinivasan (@vibhu_s) Managing Director, SolutionsIQ India Vibhu Srinivasan is an Entrepreneur, Agile Coach, Technologist and currently heads SolutionsIQ India. Vibhu has an extensive technology, process, and consulting background allowing him to work with a diverse set of clients and teams. Vibhu has been practicing agile practices since 1997 (officially called Agile only in 2001).He brings to his consulting, deep rooted passion and practices gained by working in the trenches with hundreds of developers on real projects. He is very passionate about software development and can code in multiple languages. He has helped many teams in their quest for agility. He is a CTO of a early stage start up in Seattle and has an MBA in strategic management from school of business Madison. He has a very solid understanding of building large scale scalable systems having participated in various roles over the years, most recently chief architect for a game, Lead for virtualization product at Microsoft and CTO of his own start-up. He has worked in financial, gaming, visualization domains to name a few. An entrepreneur by choice he is always busy building a company/product and is currently in India heading Solutions IQ a premier provider of Agile consulting and development services in the US.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Participants</h2>
<hr />
<h3>Intended Audience</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Anyone interested in Wikipedia (user, contributor or curious about it). Wikipedians from any part of India or the world and anyone who is interested in Wikipedia! Meetup is open to members of all Wikimedia projects and Wikipedians from all languages. All are welcome, and we are especially interested in seeing newcomers to join the experienced Wikipedians/Wikimedians. If you are interested in coming, please add your name below.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The full details can be accessed on the <a class="external-link" href="http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiMeetups/Bangalore/Bangalore54#Vishnu_Vardhan">Wikipedia page</a></p>
<ul>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wiki-meet-up-bangalore'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wiki-meet-up-bangalore</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-02-11T06:22:56ZNews ItemWiki Media Foundation keen on developing Urdu Wikipedia
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/siasat-daily-october-24-2014-wiki-media-foundation-keen-on-developing-urdu-wikipedia
<b>The Wikipedia India Community Consultation 2014 was organized by the Wiki Media Foundation (WMF) and Wikipedia India Chapter in collaboration with Centre for Internet Society (CIS A2K) Bangalore on The venue was Movenpick Hotel and scheduled for October 4th and 5th here.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.siasat.com/english/news/wiki-media-foundation-keen-developing-urdu-wikipedia">published in the Siasat Daily</a> on October 24, 2014.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The objectives of the meet up according to the organizers are “to share views and preferences on the most effective ways to pursue our shared vision of creating and sharing free knowledge in India and in the Indian languages, and to arrive at an agreement on a road map for a future where its resources are better utilized, its volunteers are better served and progress on its mission is more steadily attained. “</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I reached Bangalore on 3rd October and invited Urdu speaking people and the Urdu media from Bangalore for a general meet up. Mr. Azeez Belgaumi a renowned Urdu Poet & writer and Mr. Syed Tanveer Ahmed, as senior Journalist heading “Karnataka Muslims” News portal approached me and we had a good conversation to know more about Urdu Wikipedia. They appreciated Wikipedia and promised to extend their support to the Urdu Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Syed Tanveer Ahmed and Mr. Azeez Belgaumi promised to take up the initiative to conduct some Wiki workshops in collaboration with Salam foundation and CIS A2K. Mr. Vishnu the Project Director CIS has also agreed to extend his best support to organize the outreach programmes in Bengaluru and other parts of India to develop Urdu Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An introductory meeting was held in the evening of 3rd October in which members of WMF and the Wikipedians representing languages viz. English, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Odia, Assamese, Kannada, Konkani, Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, and Gujarati attended.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On 4th October after noon the scheduled meet up was conducted wherein WMF Senior Director Grantmaking Mrs. Anasuya Sengupta from US, Head of Wikimedia Grants & Global South Partnerships Mr. Asaf Bartov from US, Chief Financial Officer Mr. Garfiled Byrd from France and Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees Mr. Petricio Lorente from Argentina Trustee Bishakha Datta participated. Mr. Gagan Sethi from Counterviews Gujarat facilitated the programme.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Indic language bureaucrats, sysops and representatives participated actively and focused on the topic how to improve the Wikipedia in Indic languages. This session gone up to 7 p.m. and in the night too, the delegates had the get together to discuss on various issued related to Wikimedia programmes in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On the 5th October morning the work shop continued with dignified discussions. Various user groups from different languages took part and presented their views and successes. The discussions focused on wiki tools, various practical problems, do’s and don’ts. It’s a fabulous meet to take part, comprehend, and show the spirit of volunteerism towards Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">During discussion on Urdu language, Mr. Asaf appreciated the contributions of Mr. Muhammad Shuaib. Mr. Nisar Ahmed Syed administrator in Telugu Wikipedia represented Urdu Wikipedia too as he is a contributor to Urdu Wikipedia. He discussed issues and stressed the need of outreach and developmental activities for Urdu Wikipedia in India. Mr. Muzammil Ahmed from Hindi and Urdu Wikipedia advocated its importance.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ms. Anasuya and Mr. Asaf Bartov accepted the need of Urdu Wiki development programmes in India and they said they are ready to prepare a road map for the same.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Finally with the initiations of Mr. Nisar Ahmed Syed and with the kind cooperation of Mr. Asaf Bartov and Mrs. Anasuya Sengupta, an Urdu user group was set and introduced. The user group initially was gathered by backing of Mr. Asaf Bartov. The group has Mr. Syed Nisar Ahmed (Pune), Mr. Muzammil Ahmed (Hyderabad), Mr. Azeez Belgaumi (Bengaluru) and Mr. Satdeep Gil (Punjab).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The contributions of Muzammil Ahmed and Nisar Ahmed to Urdu Wikipedia were appreciated. The WMF team thanked all the Urdu users from India who rendered their best contributions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Emphasis was laid to improve the Urdu Wikipedia India group.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As WMF intends to focus on the online encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA in the Indian languages Urdu users too expressed willingness to work for the mother tongue Urdu by enriching Urdu Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Nisar Ahmed said, “It is true that the awareness among the Urdu speaking community about Urdu Wikipedia is very less.” He emphasized the need to take a small step to lead to a large extent to bring awareness by means of outreach programmes, meet ups, seminars. It was accepted and appreciated to initiate outreach work among the Urdu speaking states and clusters in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In India about 450 newspapers and magazines are being published in Urdu language. And it is an amazing fact that many of the Urdu newspapers are using the Wikipedia as their source material from English Wikipedia as it has a large and authentic content, but they are not aware about the need to enrich Urdu Wikipedia. It should be known that everyone can edit, resource and enrich it. Hence it is decided to start a user group for Urdu Wikipedia India and to bring the same message to the masses.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Bring Urdu Wikipedia from budding stage to a blooming stage.”Courtesy:Karnataka Muslims</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/siasat-daily-october-24-2014-wiki-media-foundation-keen-on-developing-urdu-wikipedia'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/siasat-daily-october-24-2014-wiki-media-foundation-keen-on-developing-urdu-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaUrdu WikipediaOpenness2014-11-01T13:23:54ZNews ItemWiki Media Foundation keen on developing Urdu Wikipedia
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/karnataka-muslims-nisar-ahmed-syed-october-22-2014-wiki-media-foundation-keen-on-developing-urdu-wikipedia
<b>The Wikipedia India Community Consultation 2014 was organized by the Wiki Media Foundation (WMF) and Wikipedia India Chapter in collaboration with Centre for Internet Society (CIS A2K) Bangalore on The venue was Movenpick Hotel and scheduled for October 4th and 5th here.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Nisar Ahmed Syed was originally <a class="external-link" href="http://www.karnatakamuslims.com/portal/wiki-media-foundation-keen-on-developing-urdu-wikipedia/">published on the website of Karnataka Muslims</a> on October 22, 2014.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>India Community Consultation 2014 held in Bangalore</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The objectives of the meet up according to the organizers are “to share views and preferences on the most effective ways to pursue our shared vision of creating and sharing free knowledge in India and in the Indian languages, and to arrive at an agreement on a road map for a future where its resources are better utilized, its volunteers are better served and progress on its mission is more steadily attained. “</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I reached Bangalore on 3rd October and invited Urdu speaking people and the Urdu media from Bangalore for a general meet up. Mr. Azeez Belgaumi a renowned Urdu Poet & writer and Mr. Syed Tanveer Ahmed, as senior Journalist heading “Karnataka Muslims” News portal approached me and we had a good conversation to know more about Urdu Wikipedia. They appreciated Wikipedia and promised to extend their support to the Urdu Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Syed Tanveer Ahmed and Mr. Azeez Belgaumi promised to take up the initiative to conduct some Wiki workshops in collaboration with Salam foundation and CIS A2K. Mr. Vishnu the Project Director CIS has also agreed to extend his best support to organize the outreach programmes in Bengaluru and other parts of India to develop Urdu Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An introductory meeting was held in the evening of 3rd October in which members of WMF and the Wikipedians representing languages viz. English, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Odia, Assamese, Kannada, Konkani, Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, and Gujarati attended.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On 4th October after noon the scheduled meet up was conducted wherein WMF Senior Director Grantmaking Mrs. Anasuya Sengupta from US, Head of Wikimedia Grants & Global South Partnerships Mr. Asaf Bartov from US, Chief Financial Officer Mr. Garfiled Byrd from France and Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees Mr. Petricio Lorente from Argentina Trustee Bishakha Datta participated. Mr. Gagan Sethi from Counterviews Gujarat facilitated the programme.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Indic language bureaucrats, sysops and representatives participated actively and focused on the topic how to improve the Wikipedia in Indic languages. This session gone up to 7 p.m. and in the night too, the delegates had the get together to discuss on various issued related to Wikimedia programmes in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On the 5th October morning the work shop continued with dignified discussions. Various user groups from different languages took part and presented their views and successes. The discussions focused on wiki tools, various practical problems, do’s and don’ts. It’s a fabulous meet to take part, comprehend, and show the spirit of volunteerism towards Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">During discussion on Urdu language, Mr. Asaf appreciated the contributions of Mr. Muhammad Shuaib. Mr. Nisar Ahmed Syed administrator in Telugu Wikipedia represented Urdu Wikipedia too as he is a contributor to Urdu Wikipedia. He discussed issues and stressed the need of outreach and developmental activities for Urdu Wikipedia in India. Mr. Muzammil Ahmed from Hindi and Urdu Wikipedia advocated its importance.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ms. Anasuya and Mr. Asaf Bartov accepted the need of Urdu Wiki development programmes in India and they said they are ready to prepare a road map for the same.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Finally with the initiations of Mr. Nisar Ahmed Syed and with the kind cooperation of Mr. Asaf Bartov and Mrs. Anasuya Sengupta, an Urdu user group was set and introduced. The user group initially was gathered by backing of Mr. Asaf Bartov. The group has Mr. Syed Nisar Ahmed (Pune), Mr. Muzammil Ahmed (Hyderabad), Mr. Azeez Belgaumi (Bengaluru) and Mr. Satdeep Gil (Punjab).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The contributions of Muzammil Ahmed and Nisar Ahmed to Urdu Wikipedia were appreciated. The WMF team thanked all the Urdu users from India who rendered their best contributions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Emphasis was laid to improve the Urdu Wikipedia India group.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As WMF intends to focus on the online encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA in the Indian languages Urdu users too expressed willingness to work for the mother tongue Urdu by enriching Urdu Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Nisar Ahmed said, “It is true that the awareness among the Urdu speaking community about Urdu Wikipedia is very less.” He emphasized the need to take a small step to lead to a large extent to bring awareness by means of outreach programmes, meet ups, seminars. It was accepted and appreciated to initiate outreach work among the Urdu speaking states and clusters in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In India about 450 newspapers and magazines are being published in Urdu language. And it is an amazing fact that many of the Urdu newspapers are using the Wikipedia as their source material from English Wikipedia as it has a large and authentic content, but they are not aware about the need to enrich Urdu Wikipedia. It should be known that everyone can edit, resource and enrich it. Hence it is decided to start a user group for Urdu Wikipedia India and to bring the same message to the masses.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>“Bring Urdu Wikipedia from budding stage</i> to a blooming stage.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/karnataka-muslims-nisar-ahmed-syed-october-22-2014-wiki-media-foundation-keen-on-developing-urdu-wikipedia'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/karnataka-muslims-nisar-ahmed-syed-october-22-2014-wiki-media-foundation-keen-on-developing-urdu-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-11-01T13:29:32ZNews ItemWiki Loves Pride 2014 and Adding Diversity to Wikipedia
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-blog-dorothy-howard-wiki-loves-pride-2014-and-adding-diversity-to-wikipedia
<b>Since Wikipedia’s gender gap first came to light in late 2010, Wikipedians have taken the issue to heart, developing projects with a focus on inclusivity in content, editorship and the learning environments relevant to new editors. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to read the original published on <a class="external-link" href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/07/18/wiki-loves-pride-2014-and-adding-diversity-to-wikipedia/">Wikimedia blog here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Pride" title="Wiki Loves Pride">Wiki Loves Pride</a> started from conversations among Wikipedians editing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT" title="w:LGBT">LGBT</a> topics in a variety of fields, including history, popular culture, politics and medicine, and supporters of <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT/Portal" title="Wikimedia LGBT/Portal">Wikimedia LGBT</a> - a proposed <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups" title="Wikimedia user groups">user group</a> which promotes the development of LGBT-related content on Wikimedia projects in all languages and encourages LGBT organizations to adopt the values of free culture and open access. The group has slowly been building momentum for the past few years, but had not yet executed a major outreach initiative. Wiki Loves Pride helped kickstart the group’s efforts to gather international supporters and expand its language coverage.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Pride Edit-a-Thons and Photo Campaigns Held Internationally</h3>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr style="text-align: justify; ">
<td>
<p>We decided to run a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Pride_2014" title="en:Wikipedia:Wiki Loves Pride 2014">campaign</a> in June (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_pride#LGBT_Pride_Month" title="w:Gay pride">LGBT Pride Month</a> in the United States), culminating with a multi-city edit-a-thon on June 21. We first committed to hosting events in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City">New York City</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregon">Portland</a>, Oregon (our cities of residence), hoping others would follow. We also gave individuals the option to contribute remotely, either by improving articles online or by uploading images related to LGBT culture and history. This was of particular importance for users who live in regions of the world less tolerant of LGBT communities, or where it may be dangerous to organize LGBT meetups.</p>
</td>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/SanFrancisco.png" alt="San Francisco" class="image-inline" title="San Francisco" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In addition to New York City and Portland, offline events were held in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia">Philadelphia</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C.">Washington, D.C.</a>, with online activities in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston">Houston</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle">Seattle</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul">Seoul</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa">South Africa</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver">Vancouver</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna">Vienna</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw">Warsaw</a>. Events will be held in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore">Bangalore</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Delhi">New Delhi</a> later this month as part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_for_Internet_and_Society_%28India%29" title="en:Centre for Internet and Society (India)">Centre for Internet and Society’s</a> (CIS) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_to_knowledge_movement" title="en:Access to knowledge movement">Access to Knowledge</a> (A2K) program. Other Wikimedia chapters have expressed interest in hosting LGBT edit-a-thons in the future.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Campaign Results</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Pride_2014/Results" title="en:Wikipedia:Wiki Loves Pride 2014/Results">The campaign’s “Results” page</a> lists 90 LGBT-related articles which were created on English Wikipedia and links to more than 750 images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Also listed are new categories, templates and article drafts, along with “Did you know” (DYK) hooks that appeared on the Main Page and policy proposals which may be of interest to the global LGBT community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The campaign also attracted participation from Wikimedia projects other than Wikipedia. <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikimedia Commons</a> hosted an <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photo_challenge/2014_-_June_-_Wiki_Loves_Pride_2014" title="commons:Commons:Photo challenge/2014 - June - Wiki Loves Pride 2014">LGBT photo challenge</a>, which received more than 50 entries and an <a>LGBT task force</a> was created at <a>Wikidata</a>. So far the group, which also seeks to improve LGBT-related content, has gathered 10 supporters and has adopted a rainbow-colored variation of the Wikidata logo as its symbol.</p>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr style="text-align: justify; ">
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/PortlandPride.png" title="Portland Pride" height="268" width="356" alt="Portland Pride" class="image-inline" /></th>
<td>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Continuing Efforts</h3>
<p>Our hope is that the campaign will continue to grow and evolve, galvanizing participation in more locations and in different languages. Wiki Loves Pride organizers will continue to provide logistical support to those interested in hosting events and collaborating with cultural institutions.</p>
<p>Contiguous with the events of Wiki Loves Pride, Wikimedia LGBT has an open application to achieve user group status from the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee" title="Affiliations Committee">Wikimedia Affiliations Committee</a> and looks forward to expanding its members and efforts on all fronts.</p>
<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: justify; ">
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: justify; ">
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: justify; ">
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: justify; ">
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: justify; ">
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: justify; ">
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: justify; ">
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: justify; ">
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<ul>
<li><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Another_Believer">Jason Moore</a>, Wikipedian </b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:OR_drohowa">Dorothy Howard</a>, Wikipedian</b></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="post-meta-key">Copyright notes:</span> <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SF_Pride_2014_-_Stierch_6.jpg">"SF Pride 2014 - Stierch 6.jpg"</a> by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch"> SarahStierch </a>, under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode">CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported</a>, from Wikimedia Commons, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portland_Pride_2014_-_036.JPG">"Portland Pride 2014 - 036.JPG"</a> by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Another_Believer"> Another Believer </a>, under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode">CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported</a>, from Wikimedia Commons</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-blog-dorothy-howard-wiki-loves-pride-2014-and-adding-diversity-to-wikipedia'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-blog-dorothy-howard-wiki-loves-pride-2014-and-adding-diversity-to-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherdorothyOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-07-25T10:56:38ZBlog EntryWiki Loves Mayabazaar
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wiki-loves-mayabazaar
<b></b>
<div>
<div>On the 60th anniversary of the movie Mayabazar, Telugu Wikimedians celebrated <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Mayabazar">Wiki Loves Mayabazar</a>, an event to commemorate the cult Telugu film <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayabazar" target="_blank">Mayabazar.</a> As part of the celebrations, an edit-a-thon of the same name was held at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravindra_Bharathi" target="_blank">Ravindra Bharathi in Hyderabad. </a>Interestingly, the Cultural Department of Telangana Government sponsored the entire event. <br /><br />In
the Telugu speaking regions, there is a well-known appreciation of the
cinematic arts. Mayabazar, released in 1957 captured the imagination of
fans like no other film had before. Telugu Wikipedians decided to pay
tribute to the movie by improving articles and content related to it on
Telugu Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.</div>
<br />The
edit-a-thon was held on 30 April, 2017 at the monthly Wikimitra Vedika
meetup of Telugu Wikipedians. A screening of the film took place
followed by discussions on references, citations, film studies and
articles related to the film. From 1 May 2017, the edit-a-thon took
place online. <br /><br />There were 15 participants of which only one member was female. Telugu Wikipedian, Kasyap hoped for more participation as this "is an interesting event."</div>
<p>However, the event was made popular by the wide ranging media coverage in print and electronic media.</p>
<div> </div>
<p>Media pieces on the event:</p>
<p> </p>
1. <span id="gmail-OBJ_PREFIX_DWT147_com_zimbra_date" class="gmail-Object"></span><span id="gmail-OBJ_PREFIX_DWT148_com_zimbra_url" class="gmail-Object"><a href="http://www.eenadu.net/andhra-pradesh-news-inner.aspx?category=home&item=%20ap-story6" target="_blank">‘మాయాబజార్’కు వినూత్న షష్టిపూర్తి</a></span>
<p> (Eenadu Newspaper; 1 May, 2017)</p>
2.‘మాయాబజార్’కు 60 ఏళ్లు.. వినూత్న షష్టిపూర్తి వేడుకకు సిద్ధమవుతున్న వికీపీడియన్లు! (Ap7am.com; 1 May 2017)Wiki Loves Mayabazaar
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wiki-loves-mayabazaar'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wiki-loves-mayabazaar</a>
</p>
No publisherPavan SanthoshCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaTelugu WikipediaOpenness2017-06-07T09:24:35ZBlog EntryWiki goes the oral citation way
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/oral-citations-project-on-wikimedia
<b>In a way to overcome lack of any citable sources in print on several interesting, but lesser-known topics, an Indian researcher on the Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation, has evolved The Oral Citations Project.</b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Meet-Wikimedias-Indian-face-Achal-Prabhala/163562/0/">This blog post by Chokkapan S was published in Cyber Media on June 11, 2012</a></p>
<p>Limpopo, South Africa. What does it remind you of? The northernmost province of the Rainbow Nation? The river that snakes through SA, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique?</p>
<p>There is more to Limpopo than one might have imagined. Many local women in the region are experts in brewing a unique beer from the Marula fruit.</p>
<p>Or, for that matter, how many of us would have heard about Dabba Kali? It's a traditional game played by children in North Kerala, which even many Malayalis from the southern districts of the state may not be well aware of.</p>
<p>In both the cases, there is lack of any citations on official sources, either in print or on the Web, despite them being utterly interesting topics.</p>
<p>This is where Achal Prabhala, an Indian researcher and writer based out of Bangalore, has stepped in to look for a solution. A member of the Advisory Board of the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ciol.com/News/News/News-Reports/Wikipedia-has-big-plans-for-India/156757/0/">Wikimedia Foundation</a>, he is working on The Oral Citations Project, a strategic research work funded by a grant to help overcome lack of published material in emerging languages on Wikipedia.</p>
<p>The Advisory Board is an international network of experts who have agreed to give the Wikimedia Foundation meaningful help on a regular basis in many different areas, including law, organizational development, technology, policy, and outreach.</p>
<p>"I began to get interested in Wikimedia in 2005. I think <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ciol.com/Global-News/News-Reports/60-pc-of-Wikipedia-entries-contain-errors/162328/0/">Wikipedia</a>, especially in English, doesn't reflect exactly the world we live in. There is some degree of a gap; a huge disparity between what is published and where it is published from," says Prabhala, settling down in his chair at his Cooke Town residence.</p>
<p>"I am more interested in knowing everyday things and conversations, which are not recorded in books," he adds, even as he concedes that the printed book has become the final authority, because of the rigorous, scholarly processes involved in validating the contents.</p>
<p>To put it in better perspective, the number of books published in India and South Africa are nowhere close to the number of books churned out in the United Kingdom. About seven years ago, the UK had 161,000 books published benefiting its 60 million people, whereas India had about 97,000 books for a population of 1.1 billion and South Africa mere 6,100 for 48 million people. That should explain the wide chasm.</p>
<p>Prabhala says, "The amount of media in non-English languages (vernacular) in India is tremendous, but there is not much scholarly content, other than developing news." Basically, in countries like ours and South Africa, there is very little citable, printed material in local languages.</p>
<p>So, oral citations from the local populace naturally fit in as a viable alternative. As a part of this project, Prabhala and his video directors, Priya Sen and Zen Marie, spoke to people in African and Indian villages and recorded the conversations on several niche, but unexplored topics.</p>
<p>Later, the audio interviews were uploaded and linked to the article as sources, which served as oral citations, good to be quoted anywhere.</p>
<p>They worked on three languages: Hindi, Malayalam and Sepedi, which is formally listed under the language category Northern Sotho in South Africa. But why these three languages, in particular? "These are the linguistic communities that evinced interest and came forward to work together on this project," replies Prabhala.</p>
<p>As for Hindi, he says that there are so many articles, but less number of authors and in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Yahoo-offers-Malayalam-content-to-internet-users/160898/0/">Malayalam</a>, slightly less articles, but a lot of professional editors available.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the entire project turned out to be quite organic. "People are looking at it in a universal way. We want to converge people to make their own audio citations. There are huge oral archives being used around the world," says Prabhala, who also serves on the board of the Centre for Internet and Society.</p>
<p>Wikimedia Foundation has over 19 million articles written by about 90,000 editors across the world. Would you be contributing to this unique project?</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/oral-citations-project-on-wikimedia'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/oral-citations-project-on-wikimedia</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaOpenness2012-06-18T06:18:58ZNews ItemWiki donors
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/timeout-bengaluru-akhila-seetharaman-june-21-2013-wiki-donors
<b>Time Out finds out what Wikipedia’s doing to turn the info mammoth Kannada friendly</b>
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<p>The article by Akhila Seetharaman was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/bangalore-beat/features/wiki-donors">published in TimeOut Bengaluru</a> on June 21, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Dr. U.B. Pavanaja are quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some Wikipedia numbers: Two hundred and eighty-six languages, 42 lakh articles in English. 2.6 crore articles totally. One lakh articles in Hindi, 50,000 in Telugu and Tamil each. Forty thousand in Marathi; 30,000 in Malayalam; 14,000 articles in Kannada. Number of Kannada Wikipedia contributors: 25. Kannadaspeaking population: 47 million. “That’s half a person working to build this public knowledge repository for every million Kannada speakers,” said Vishnu Vardhan, who directs the Access for Knowledge programme in India, a programme that is anchored by the Centre for Internet and Society. “While Hindi Wikipedia gets 60 lakhs page views per month, Kannada gets nine lakh eyeballs monthly.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Vardhan and his team do outreach programmes, training college studentsin Karnataka on Wikipedia and encouraging them to contribute to its growing body of knowledge in Kannada. So far they’ve had 16 programmes and reached out to 2,500 people. Vardhan admits that there’s a mixed response. “It’s not a labour of love for everyone. Some people are excited to contribute, others feel it’s too much work.”<b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But he believes it’s important to get across the main message: that Wikipedia is a public knowledge infrastructure for the future. “In our minds libraries, books, newspapers, archives are knowledge repositories,” he said. “But the book is a relatively recent phenomenon, only about a hundred years old. And now everything is becoming the Internet. What is going to happen to our language or culture in the digital era?” Vardhan explains to people that this is the gap they could be filling by taking part in Indian language Wikipedia.<b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On the agenda for the coming year is growing the content in five Indian language Wikipedias, including Kannada. It’s a gargantuan task. Nobody gets paid to write on Wikipedia and there are technical challenges: you need browser support, Kannada fonts, and most keyboard layouts are in English. But as Vardhan says the Kannada font can be downloaded for free.<b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But free knowledge communities in each language have to overcome hurdles if there’s to be a valuable repository of knowledge for the public in Indian languages. “We are all netizens. We are all educated, metro people. We’re comfortable accessing the Internet but how many of us use it in our own language? Do we type in Kannada or write in Kannada? While access to knowledge happens in English there is still a large population that does its business in Kannada,” he said. <i>Visit <a target="_blank">kn.wikipedia.org.</a></i></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Tech’s messages<br /> </b>UB Pavanaja was among the first eggheads to take Kannada content online. Time Out spoke to him about the city’s lingo</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Could you tell us about a little about yourself?</b> <br /> I worked as a scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) in Mumbai for 15 years before getting into the emerging field of computers and Indian languages. I started the first Kannada website, and the first Kannada online magazine. I also created the first Indian language version (Kannada) of Logo software, a popular programming language for children and advised the Government of Karnataka on standarising Kannada on computers. I now work with the Centre for Internet and Society as part of the Access to Knowledge team.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>How has Kannada changed in the past two decades?</b> <br /> There have been lots of changes. It is mostly Kanglish now, no more Kannada. Most people have replaced common Kannada words like “appa”, “amma”, “anna”, “akka”, “chikkappa”, “atte”, with dad, mom, bro, sis, uncle, aunty. Nobody uses Kannada numbers. Go to any shop and the shopkeeper will give you the price in English and not in Kannada. Even the display boards in shops are now in English. Common vegetables and fruits names are now displayed in English. I don’t know the names of common vegetables and fruits in English so I can’t rely on the boards for information. I either know the vegetable by looking at it or I don’t. If the price board is moved slightly, then I won’t know the price of the vegetable. For example, in Reliance Fresh, they write “coccinea” for our common vegetable which we know as “tondekaayi”. Let them write coccinea in English script. But why do they write that in Kannada script?<b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>How have information and communication technologies influenced Kannada language over the years? </b>About ten or 15 years ago when developments in IT were rapid, the implementation of Kannada in IT was not keeping pace with time. Hence people thought it was not possible to use Kannada in IT. But that has changed now. Whatever is possible with English in IT is now possible with Kannada also. But people lack awareness and willingness to adopt it. Wherever there is computerisation, it is automatically in English and not Kannada. For, example, the online booking of tickets by KSRTC is in English only. Technically it is now possible to develop a data-driven website in Kannada. But KSRTC is not willing to do so.<b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Any Kannada lingo that didn’t exist two decades?</b> <br /> There are many. Some samples: “message maadu”, “delete maadu”, “missed call kodu”, “update maadu”, “copy maadu”. Most of them are derived from using technology.<b> </b></p>
<b>What have been the biggest influences on the Kannada language in recent times?</b> <br /> Mobile phones, smart phones, FM radio, TV channels, and movies.</td>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/timeout-bengaluru-akhila-seetharaman-june-21-2013-wiki-donors'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/timeout-bengaluru-akhila-seetharaman-june-21-2013-wiki-donors</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-07-01T04:19:13ZNews Item