[Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Hisham Mundol]

Hi Folks

(Some) students in the Pune pilot have copy-pasted copyright material onto 
their articles.  We are taking these copyvios extremely seriously and here's a 
summary of the action that we have taken.

a) Conducted classroom sessions in all 3 colleges where the program is running 
and conveying the importance of not making this mistake - and the fact that 
they will be caught - and that too quickly.  Between Nitika and I, we've 
conducted sessions in at least 10 separate classes last week (along with Campus 
Ambassadors.)
b) Conducted meetings with the directors and faculty members to convey the 
gravity of the issue and asking them to pass on the message to their students 
in the strongest possible terms.
c) Almost doubling the number of Campus Ambassadors to provide more on-ground 
support for students.  We will be sending out an update on this soon.  The 
issue of copyvios was taken up specifically during the training for these 
Campus Ambassadors.
d) Started work on establishing an Online Ambassador program 
(http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-September/004299.html)
 to provide additional support 
e) Disabled the leaderboard 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Leaderboard) so 
that we make sure that recognition is given only to deserving students.

Controlling the copyvio issue is the single biggest issue for the program and 
we will continue to do everything it takes to minimize it.  Of course, some 
students who will still try and cut corners and the actions listed above should 
hopefully reduce the problem.

Having said all this, we must not cloud the fantastic work of many students by 
the errors committed by (some) newbies who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia.  Do 
continue to support and celebrate the work of the good guys!

Thank you for you continued support on this.

Best

hisham

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Béria Lima]

There are another way (who works fine in Brazilian program): Treat then as
adults they are and the articles as projects. If I cheat in a project in any
college in Brazil my professor would give me a zero. In some brazilians
college I may be expelled for do that (without count the fact that is also a
crime in Brazil). We (and they) need to realize how serious copyright
violations are.

But to make sure,  i'm not saying you people to threat your students, but to
make them realize how serious that is.
_
*Béria Lima*

*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre
acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. É isso o que estamos a
fazer .*


On 12 September 2011 08:46, Hisham Mundol  wrote:

> Hi Folks
>
> (Some) students in the Pune pilot have copy-pasted copyright material onto
> their articles.  We are taking these copyvios extremely seriously and here's
> a summary of the action that we have taken.
>
> a) Conducted classroom sessions in all 3 colleges where the program is
> running and conveying the importance of not making this mistake - and the
> fact that they will be caught - and that too quickly.  Between Nitika and I,
> we've conducted sessions in at least 10 separate classes last week (along
> with Campus Ambassadors.)
> b) Conducted meetings with the directors and faculty members to convey the
> gravity of the issue and asking them to pass on the message to their
> students in the strongest possible terms.
> c) Almost doubling the number of Campus Ambassadors to provide more
> on-ground support for students.  We will be sending out an update on this
> soon.  The issue of copyvios was taken up specifically during the training
> for these Campus Ambassadors.
> d) Started work on establishing an Online Ambassador program (
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-September/004299.html)
> to provide additional support
> e) Disabled the leaderboard (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Leaderboard) so
> that we make sure that recognition is given only to deserving students.
>
> Controlling the copyvio issue is the single biggest issue for the program
> and we will continue to do everything it takes to minimize it.  Of course,
> some students who will still try and cut corners and the actions listed
> above should hopefully reduce the problem.
>
> Having said all this, we must not cloud the fantastic work of many students
> by the errors committed by (some) newbies who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia.
>  Do continue to support and celebrate the work of the good guys!
>
> Thank you for you continued support on this.
>
> Best
>
> hisham
>
>
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>
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Gautam John]

On 12 September 2011 13:16, Hisham Mundol  wrote:

> (Some) students in the Pune pilot have copy-pasted copyright material onto
> their articles.  We are taking these copyvios extremely seriously and here's
> a summary of the action that we have taken.

You know, Hisham, it's nice that the WMF takes this seriously but we
might be over blowing it a tad too far. The WMFs policies work really
well in a 1st world environment where there is great sensitivity to
copyright and violations. In India, it's a different kettle of fish
and we need to treat it as such.

Yes, it is important to explain why copyvivos are important (and from
an academic, plagiarism point of view too) but the bigger issue if
intellectual honesty.

I think they'll do just fine!

Thank you.

Best,

Gautam

http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Theo10011]

I beg to differ Gautum. Since, it was made part of the curriculum this
almost constitutes as cheating. I am not sure about lofty first world
standards but
I would be failed for cheating just about anywhere in the world.

Second, if we don't uphold the "WMF policies" (they are actually project
policies, not the foundation's) in an officially sanctioned and financed
program, then who will?

If we were to take this idea further, why respect any local copyright at
all? or at least the one in Global South. We can just add copyrighted images
and books right off from anywhere, forget about CC or any attempt at working
on Open-source licenses.

As always, I agree with Beria. If those student were to be graded for this
project, they should be failed.

Theo

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Gautam John wrote:

> On 12 September 2011 13:16, Hisham Mundol  wrote:
>
> > (Some) students in the Pune pilot have copy-pasted copyright material
> onto
> > their articles.  We are taking these copyvios extremely seriously and
> here's
> > a summary of the action that we have taken.
>
> You know, Hisham, it's nice that the WMF takes this seriously but we
> might be over blowing it a tad too far. The WMFs policies work really
> well in a 1st world environment where there is great sensitivity to
> copyright and violations. In India, it's a different kettle of fish
> and we need to treat it as such.
>
> Yes, it is important to explain why copyvivos are important (and from
> an academic, plagiarism point of view too) but the bigger issue if
> intellectual honesty.
>
> I think they'll do just fine!
>
> Thank you.
>
> Best,
>
> Gautam
> 
> http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html
>
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Ashwin Baindur]

Hisham,

Nice to hear the comprehensive way in which the copy violation issue is
being addressed. Its better to nip this in the bud otherwise it could grow
beyond control and also sully the good work being done by hundreds of
students.

Warm regards,

Ashwin Baindur
--


On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 1:16 PM, Hisham Mundol wrote:

> Hi Folks
>
> (Some) students in the Pune pilot have copy-pasted copyright material onto
> their articles.  We are taking these copyvios extremely seriously and here's
> a summary of the action that we have taken.
>
> a) Conducted classroom sessions in all 3 colleges where the program is
> running and conveying the importance of not making this mistake - and the
> fact that they will be caught - and that too quickly.  Between Nitika and I,
> we've conducted sessions in at least 10 separate classes last week (along
> with Campus Ambassadors.)
> b) Conducted meetings with the directors and faculty members to convey the
> gravity of the issue and asking them to pass on the message to their
> students in the strongest possible terms.
> c) Almost doubling the number of Campus Ambassadors to provide more
> on-ground support for students.  We will be sending out an update on this
> soon.  The issue of copyvios was taken up specifically during the training
> for these Campus Ambassadors.
> d) Started work on establishing an Online Ambassador program (
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-September/004299.html)
> to provide additional support
> e) Disabled the leaderboard (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Leaderboard) so
> that we make sure that recognition is given only to deserving students.
>
> Controlling the copyvio issue is the single biggest issue for the program
> and we will continue to do everything it takes to minimize it.  Of course,
> some students who will still try and cut corners and the actions listed
> above should hopefully reduce the problem.
>
> Having said all this, we must not cloud the fantastic work of many students
> by the errors committed by (some) newbies who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia.
>  Do continue to support and celebrate the work of the good guys!
>
> Thank you for you continued support on this.
>
> Best
>
> hisham
>
>
> ___
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>
>
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[Wikimediaindia-l] Press Coverage: Request for Voices & Faces!

[Hisham Mundol]

Hi Folks

In the last couple of days, we've had a couple of really insightful, 
well-written articles on Wikipedia and you, the community. 
http://www.timescrest.com/life/you-cant-copypaste-this-homework-6226

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110911/jsp/7days/story_14492284.jsp

I want to acknowledge the behind-the-scenes work of Tinu and Moka.  (Most of 
you know Tinu - who's a community member based out of Bangalore.  For those of 
you who don't know, Moka handles Global Communications for the Wikimedia 
Foundation.)  They have worked on making sure that we convey the right messages 
as well as making the articles as inclusive of as many community members as 
possible - by covering the stories of as wide a range of editors as possible.  
The result of their work is the high-quality articles I've referenced above.

We will continue to get requests from the press and I'd love to have them tell 
the tales of an even larger and more varied group of community members.   It'll 
help to convey the diversity and magic of the community.  Can I request you let 
Tinu and I know (offlist please) if you are willing to be interviewed by 
journalists in future?  Every one of your stories will add emotion to an 
article - no matter how simple or otherwise your story is. 

Also, a practical issue that we are facing is that we don't have enough 
print-quality images of community meet ups.  Can you please add as many 
high-resolution images of as many community meet ups, outreach events, etc. as 
you can to Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) so that the 
press can access it more easily - and they can celebrate the human face of 
Wikipedia in newspapers and magazines?

Many thanks.

Warm Regards,

hisham

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Anivar Aravind]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Gautam John  wrote:
> On 12 September 2011 13:16, Hisham Mundol  wrote:
>
>> (Some) students in the Pune pilot have copy-pasted copyright material onto
>> their articles.  We are taking these copyvios extremely seriously and here's
>> a summary of the action that we have taken.
>
> You know, Hisham, it's nice that the WMF takes this seriously but we
> might be over blowing it a tad too far. The WMFs policies work really
> well in a 1st world environment where there is great sensitivity to
> copyright and violations. In India, it's a different kettle of fish
> and we need to treat it as such.

feeling Same. Treat it like usual copyright violations happening in
wikipedia, and take precautionary steps. Disabling Leaderboad etc
seems to be little overstretched act. I wonder, how we missed
addressing Copyvios at all in the programme plan?

Anivar

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Gautam John]

Hi Theo:

> I beg to differ Gautum. Since, it was made part of the curriculum this
> almost constitutes as cheating. I am not sure about lofty first world
> standards but

You seem to have missed this:

"Yes, it is important to explain why copyvivos are important (and from
an academic, plagiarism point of view too) but the bigger issue if
intellectual honesty."

> Second, if we don't uphold the "WMF policies" (they are actually project
> policies, not the foundation's) in an officially sanctioned and financed
> program, then who will?

Again, you are raising a straw-man here. I did not say do not respect
copyrights. I said that the current actions were overblown. We might
disagree on this but I do carry an activists perspective here and
respect your position and what the WMF has to do to limit liability
too.

Thank you.

Best,

Gautam

http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Hisham Mundol]

hisham

On Sep 12, 2011, at 3:07 PM, Béria Lima wrote:

> There are another way (who works fine in Brazilian program): Treat then as 
> adults they are and the articles as projects. If I cheat in a project in any 
> college in Brazil my professor would give me a zero. In some brazilians 
> college I may be expelled for do that (without count the fact that is also a 
> crime in Brazil). We (and they) need to realize how serious copyright 
> violations are.
> 
> But to make sure,  i'm not saying you people to threat your students, but to 
> make them realize how serious that is.  


Hi Beria

Agree with you - and my intention and actions are precisely to do what you 
said: to convey to students that this is a serious matter and they need to 
treat it with the seriousness that it deserves.  (In terms of the specific 
academic approaches to be taken, that is a call that faculty and directors of 
the colleges will take; not us.)

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Hisham Mundol]

hisham

On Sep 12, 2011, at 3:38 PM, Anivar Aravind wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Gautam John  wrote:
>> On 12 September 2011 13:16, Hisham Mundol  wrote:
>> 
>>> (Some) students in the Pune pilot have copy-pasted copyright material onto
>>> their articles.  We are taking these copyvios extremely seriously and here's
>>> a summary of the action that we have taken.
>> 
>> You know, Hisham, it's nice that the WMF takes this seriously but we
>> might be over blowing it a tad too far. The WMFs policies work really
>> well in a 1st world environment where there is great sensitivity to
>> copyright and violations. In India, it's a different kettle of fish
>> and we need to treat it as such.
> 
> feeling Same. Treat it like usual copyright violations happening in
> wikipedia, and take precautionary steps. Disabling Leaderboad etc
> seems to be little overstretched act. I wonder, how we missed
> addressing Copyvios at all in the programme plan?
> 

The actions we have taken are part of a set of precautionary steps - and also 
include a host of additional support for students.  One the question of the 
leaderboard, it's only fair that honest, hard-working students get the 
recognition they deserve.  

We have addressed copyvios repeatedly with students - but, what can i say, 
sometimes kids will be kids…  We are now reiterating the message through 
multiple channels.  It's opportune because a lot of students are now starting 
to edit and they need reminders.  The context is there are 1000 students and 
the overwhelming majority are new to Wikipedia.  This presents a problem of 
scale for us and a challenge of familiarity for them. 


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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Srikanth Lakshmanan]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 15:48, Gautam John  wrote:

>
> I said that the current actions were overblown.


No second thoughts on the issue and actions being taken. But I guess Gautam
has a point here. This set of copyvios were detected very early(majorly ~50
students' edits were monitored and reported), others are not yet on editing
mode still. 50 / 1000 is not some, but I would say few. But its key we take
this seriously before it explodes to a scale we cant handle since Indian
editors / newbies are already infamous for copyvios and we dont want to add
more such folks.

Apart from copyvios which can be detected since they are from online
sources, quite a few students write bookishly (which makes me wonder if they
are copying from local texts). I kind of feel(personal opinion) that
*deadlines* , *marks* are making quite a few of them to treat this as yet
another homework and in turn have the "done and dusted" attitude. Of course
there have been some good contributions, but it has been rare for the
population.

-- 
Regards
Srikanth.L
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Hisham Mundol]

hisham

On Sep 12, 2011, at 3:11 PM, Gautam John wrote:

> On 12 September 2011 13:16, Hisham Mundol  wrote:
> 
>> (Some) students in the Pune pilot have copy-pasted copyright material onto
>> their articles.  We are taking these copyvios extremely seriously and here's
>> a summary of the action that we have taken.
> 
> You know, Hisham, it's nice that the WMF takes this seriously but we
> might be over blowing it a tad too far. The WMFs policies work really
> well in a 1st world environment where there is great sensitivity to
> copyright and violations. In India, it's a different kettle of fish
> and we need to treat it as such.
> 
> Yes, it is important to explain why copyvivos are important (and from
> an academic, plagiarism point of view too) but the bigger issue if
> intellectual honesty.
> 
> I think they'll do just fine!
> 

I'm sure they'll do fine!  I continue to remain optimistic and refuse to get 
cynical about it.  …and I'll continue to celebrate some awesome awesome work.  

Maybe the tone of my message conveyed the wrong impression.  The primary goal 
is to explain what a copyvio is, convey why copyvios are not to be done and how 
to write good quality articles  - all in the context and spirit of better 
learning, more fun, intellectual honesty and the need to avoid academic 
plagiarism - so I'm with you on that.  

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Hisham Mundol]

hisham

On Sep 12, 2011, at 2:48 PM, Ashwin Baindur wrote:

> Hisham,
> 
> Nice to hear the comprehensive way in which the copy violation issue is being 
> addressed. Its better to nip this in the bud otherwise it could grow beyond 
> control and also sully the good work being done by hundreds of students.
> 
:-)

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Gautam John]

On 12 September 2011 16:00, Hisham Mundol  wrote:

> and how to write good quality articles  - all in the context and spirit of
> better learning, more fun, intellectual honesty and the need to avoid
> academic plagiarism - so I'm with you on that.

You know, at the session we had on Copyrights in Bangalore, we had an
excellent talk on the distinction between Copyright Violation and
Plagiarism. I have video but sadly too big to fit on commons. Will try
Youtube.

Thank you.

Best,

Gautam

http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Hisham Mundol]

hisham

On Sep 12, 2011, at 3:59 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote:

> 
> 
> Apart from copyvios which can be detected since they are from online sources, 
> quite a few students write bookishly (which makes me wonder if they are 
> copying from local texts). I kind of feel(personal opinion) that *deadlines* 
> , *marks* are making quite a few of them to treat this as yet another 
> homework and in turn have the "done and dusted" attitude. Of course there 
> have been some good contributions, but it has been rare for the population.

A huge amount of the work that Campus Ambassadors are doing is to convey that 
this is so much more than just another homework.  At every stage, the tone of 
all messaging is positive and uplifting and optimistic and fun.   We're 
celebrating success and showcasing new editor talent in every class. 

I am sure we will get many many many more good contributions. 

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[Wikimediaindia-l] Notices on Tamil Wikipedia

[Srikanth Lakshmanan]

Hello all,

Untill July, Site notice in Tamil Wikpedia used to give only prominent links
to Fonts / typing tutorial / Village pump. Occasionally when
meet-ups/workshops happen, we would announce them. We thought to put this
system into good use and we are already seeing positive results.

Starting July we introduced "Please correct errors, you too can edit". There
was a significant jump in anonymous edits in the weeks that followed. After
discussions, we planned to showcase faces of Tamil Wikipedia.

The idea was to put a notice featuring a picture, brief profile on editing
topics and suggesting one to start creating articles[1]. The short profile
showcased the diversity of editors across region / age / interests.Putting
faces of Tamil Wikipedians into sitenotice was not a big effort since we
already had profiles of people featured on main page. We just needed to
summarize them into a couple of lines. We have got atleast 10-15 new
contributors (> 50 edits and continuing) through this exercise. One editor
who came in after this drive is editing prolificly and already has 2000
edits now in ~ 2 months and is now being featured on the main page :) We had
more new users signing up as registered users. We roll over 4-5 banners over
a parser code during each campaign, so that people dont get the same banner
all the time.

Now we have separate notices for logged in / anonymous users. While
anonymous users get "Contribute" campaign with faces of tamil wiki with
Anonnotice[2], logged in users get messages about policies / help pages /
talk pages / DYK etc with help of Sitenotice[3]. DYK nominations has seem a
jump off late with 100+ entries coming in from contributors who didnt know
about it after the notice. We plan to introduce policies of Wikipedia slowly
through these notices, so editors who come in are aware of them. At present
we lack extensive help pages, and plan to expand them as part of this
exercise which will also improve help pages coverage in parallel.

There was a posting related to same on the list way back in Nov / Dec 2010
regarding Contribute Indic campaign[4] central notices by Salmaan, We find
these localized notices too work well and might be a good idea for other
Indic wiki's to try it out.

[1] http://defn.me/r/ta/2gav
[2] http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediawiki:Sitenotice
[3] http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediawiki:Anonnotice
[4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/Contribute_Indic

-- 
Regards
Srikanth.L
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Theo10011]

Hi Gautum

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 3:48 PM, Gautam John wrote:

> Hi Theo:
>
> > I beg to differ Gautum. Since, it was made part of the curriculum this
> > almost constitutes as cheating. I am not sure about lofty first world
> > standards but
>
> You seem to have missed this:
>
> "Yes, it is important to explain why copyvivos are important (and from
> an academic, plagiarism point of view too) but the bigger issue if
> intellectual honesty."
>

Copyright violations aren't only important from an academic plagiarism point
of view but also legal and ethical, you seem to be only focusing on text
based violation in Academia maybe. Commons users and admins spend the better
part of their time educating themselves and dealing with these violations
from different countries not because of some honesty issues but real legal
ones.Violations more often than not, can lead to court cases, damages and
expose the project to liability.
I never really distinguished what Media I was referring to in regards of
Copyright violation, in case of Video and Music, you might want to read
different variation of DMCA, along with the take-down notices that WMF has
already complied with located here[1]. For images, I can attest to spending
several hundred hours talking on IRC and looking for copyright terms of
different countries to comply with. It is something people I know take very
seriously. I am not sure if "Intellectual honesty" means ethics in this
context but I would disagree if that is what WMF and other Wikipedians would
be concerned about, it's really the legal liability that they expose WMF and
projects to. Maybe Hisham can clarify.


> > Second, if we don't uphold the "WMF policies" (they are actually project
> > policies, not the foundation's) in an officially sanctioned and financed
> > program, then who will?
>
> Again, you are raising a straw-man here. I did not say do not respect
> copyrights. I said that the current actions were overblown. We might
> disagree on this but I do carry an activists perspective here and
> respect your position and what the WMF has to do to limit liability
> too.
>

As I saw it, you stated that copyright violations are no big deal,
especially in India and the more important thing is being honest
(Intellectually) when someone plagiarizes or something to that effect.
Correct me if I based my assumptions wrong or if this straw-man is alive.

If you read my comment again, I never allege that you said not to respect
copyrights. I was referring to your perception of this issue being overblown
and not as important. I also did say, these issues are more important when
it is the WMF at the helm conducting these programs.

I am well aware of your position as a open-source book publisher and a
Creative commons hero along with someone I respect, that was why I found
your position very surprising on this issue.

Also, Hi Hisham, Nice to see you avoided replying to my comment alone. ;)

Theo

[1]http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:DMCA
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Bala Jeyaraman]

Hisham

Thank you for taking this seriously and for the prompt action . This had the
potential to become a serious PR disaster for India in general and
thankfully the actions taken seem to have stemmed the copyvio issues for
now.


On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 4:47 PM, Theo10011  wrote:

> Hi Gautum
>
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 3:48 PM, Gautam John wrote:
>
>> Hi Theo:
>>
>> > I beg to differ Gautum. Since, it was made part of the curriculum this
>> > almost constitutes as cheating. I am not sure about lofty first world
>> > standards but
>>
>> You seem to have missed this:
>>
>> "Yes, it is important to explain why copyvivos are important (and from
>> an academic, plagiarism point of view too) but the bigger issue if
>> intellectual honesty."
>>
>
> Copyright violations aren't only important from an
> academic plagiarism point of view but also legal and ethical, you seem to be
> only focusing on text based violation in Academia maybe. Commons users and
> admins spend the better part of their time educating themselves and dealing
> with these violations from different countries not because of some honesty
> issues but real legal ones.Violations more often than not, can lead to court
> cases, damages and expose the project to liability.
> I never really distinguished what Media I was referring to in regards of
> Copyright violation, in case of Video and Music, you might want to read
> different variation of DMCA, along with the take-down notices that WMF has
> already complied with located here[1]. For images, I can attest to spending
> several hundred hours talking on IRC and looking for copyright terms of
> different countries to comply with. It is something people I know take very
> seriously. I am not sure if "Intellectual honesty" means ethics in this
> context but I would disagree if that is what WMF and other Wikipedians would
> be concerned about, it's really the legal liability that they expose WMF and
> projects to. Maybe Hisham can clarify.
>
>
>> > Second, if we don't uphold the "WMF policies" (they are actually project
>> > policies, not the foundation's) in an officially sanctioned and financed
>> > program, then who will?
>>
>> Again, you are raising a straw-man here. I did not say do not respect
>> copyrights. I said that the current actions were overblown. We might
>> disagree on this but I do carry an activists perspective here and
>> respect your position and what the WMF has to do to limit liability
>> too.
>>
>
> As I saw it, you stated that copyright violations are no big deal,
> especially in India and the more important thing is being honest
> (Intellectually) when someone plagiarizes or something to that effect.
> Correct me if I based my assumptions wrong or if this straw-man is alive.
>
> If you read my comment again, I never allege that you said not to respect
> copyrights. I was referring to your perception of this issue being overblown
> and not as important. I also did say, these issues are more important when
> it is the WMF at the helm conducting these programs.
>
> I am well aware of your position as a open-source book publisher and a
> Creative commons hero along with someone I respect, that was why I found
> your position very surprising on this issue.
>
> Also, Hi Hisham, Nice to see you avoided replying to my comment alone. ;)
>
> Theo
>
> [1]http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:DMCA
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Gautam John]

On 12 September 2011 16:47, Theo10011  wrote:

> Copyright violations aren't only important from an academic plagiarism point
> of view but also legal and ethical, you seem to be only focusing on text
> based violation in Academia maybe. Commons users and admins spend the better
> part of their time educating themselves and dealing with these violations
> from different countries not because of some honesty issues but real legal
> ones.Violations more often than not, can lead to court cases, damages and
> expose the project to liability.

No doubt but the Commons/Source model is broken for cases like India
where documents are in the public domain here but not in the USA. That
said, I digress. I agree with you on the legal issues around copyvio
and it is important from the WMF's point of view since they carry the
can on this. What I was uncomfortable with was what I saw as perhaps
an over-reaction to the issue. Sure, "rather safe than sorry" is a
possible answer but it's not one I favour because we tend to err too
much on the side of caution.

> already complied with located here[1]. For images, I can attest to spending
> several hundred hours talking on IRC and looking for copyright terms of
> different countries to comply with.

No doubt, Theo and it's very important work too.

> seriously. I am not sure if "Intellectual honesty" means ethics in this
> context but I would disagree if that is what WMF and other Wikipedians would
> be concerned about, it's really the legal liability that they expose WMF and
> projects to. Maybe Hisham can clarify.

Here's is what I was highlighting - yes, the issue of copyvio is
important but given that this was in the context of an educational
program, the larger issue ought to have been in the context of
education - plagiarism and intellectual honesty and then about
copyvio. If you're going to talk about copyvio as the most important
element within an education program, it has a bearing on issues
outside of just the Wikimedia movement and is a much larger
discussion.

>> > Second, if we don't uphold the "WMF policies" (they are actually project
>> > policies, not the foundation's) in an officially sanctioned and financed
>> > program, then who will?

Again - I'm not saying they don't matter. I'm saying the priorities
are not in order.

> As I saw it, you stated that copyright violations are no big deal,
> especially in India and the more important thing is being honest
> (Intellectually) when someone plagiarizes or something to that effect.

I think I have explained myself, above. Copyvio is important but in
the current context, there are other elements that should have first
been considered.

> I am well aware of your position as a open-source book publisher and a
> Creative commons hero along with someone I respect, that was why I found
> your position very surprising on this issue.

Appreciate your kind words, Theo.

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Naveen Francis]

Hi Hisham,

Can you please inform the people who are regularly editing Indian Articles
about the Online Ambassador program before closing the dates for the same ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_India/New_articles (only
new article alert system I know)


Thanks,
Naveen Francis

On 12 September 2011 16:52, Bala Jeyaraman  wrote:

> Hisham
>
> Thank you for taking this seriously and for the prompt action . This had
> the potential to become a serious PR disaster for India in general and
> thankfully the actions taken seem to have stemmed the copyvio issues for
> now.
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 4:47 PM, Theo10011  wrote:
>
>> Hi Gautum
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 3:48 PM, Gautam John wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Theo:
>>>
>>> > I beg to differ Gautum. Since, it was made part of the curriculum this
>>> > almost constitutes as cheating. I am not sure about lofty first world
>>> > standards but
>>>
>>> You seem to have missed this:
>>>
>>> "Yes, it is important to explain why copyvivos are important (and from
>>> an academic, plagiarism point of view too) but the bigger issue if
>>> intellectual honesty."
>>>
>>
>> Copyright violations aren't only important from an
>> academic plagiarism point of view but also legal and ethical, you seem to be
>> only focusing on text based violation in Academia maybe. Commons users and
>> admins spend the better part of their time educating themselves and dealing
>> with these violations from different countries not because of some honesty
>> issues but real legal ones.Violations more often than not, can lead to court
>> cases, damages and expose the project to liability.
>> I never really distinguished what Media I was referring to in regards of
>> Copyright violation, in case of Video and Music, you might want to read
>> different variation of DMCA, along with the take-down notices that WMF has
>> already complied with located here[1]. For images, I can attest to spending
>> several hundred hours talking on IRC and looking for copyright terms of
>> different countries to comply with. It is something people I know take very
>> seriously. I am not sure if "Intellectual honesty" means ethics in this
>> context but I would disagree if that is what WMF and other Wikipedians would
>> be concerned about, it's really the legal liability that they expose WMF and
>> projects to. Maybe Hisham can clarify.
>>
>>
>>> > Second, if we don't uphold the "WMF policies" (they are actually
>>> project
>>> > policies, not the foundation's) in an officially sanctioned and
>>> financed
>>> > program, then who will?
>>>
>>> Again, you are raising a straw-man here. I did not say do not respect
>>> copyrights. I said that the current actions were overblown. We might
>>> disagree on this but I do carry an activists perspective here and
>>> respect your position and what the WMF has to do to limit liability
>>> too.
>>>
>>
>> As I saw it, you stated that copyright violations are no big deal,
>> especially in India and the more important thing is being honest
>> (Intellectually) when someone plagiarizes or something to that effect.
>> Correct me if I based my assumptions wrong or if this straw-man is alive.
>>
>> If you read my comment again, I never allege that you said not to respect
>> copyrights. I was referring to your perception of this issue being overblown
>> and not as important. I also did say, these issues are more important when
>> it is the WMF at the helm conducting these programs.
>>
>> I am well aware of your position as a open-source book publisher and a
>> Creative commons hero along with someone I respect, that was why I found
>> your position very surprising on this issue.
>>
>> Also, Hi Hisham, Nice to see you avoided replying to my comment alone. ;)
>>
>> Theo
>>
>> [1]http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:DMCA
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>>
>
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Notices on Tamil Wikipedia

[Bala Jeyaraman]

>>.Putting faces of Tamil Wikipedians into sitenotice was not a big effort
since we already had profiles of people featured on main page.

To elaborate on this, Tamil wikipedia has a separate section called
"Wikipedian profile" (loose translation) in the front page, updated every
two or three weeks. This project is the brainchild of Ravishankar and is one
of the major homegrown success stories in Ta wiki. It has been ongoing since
Oct 2009 and around 40 wikipedians have been featured so far. In the profile
we feature a few lines about the wikipedian - his background, interests and
his significant contributions etc (with photo if the wikipedian featured is
willing to supply one).

The past profiles are in this page : http://tawp.in/r/1eyn

These have come in handy while preparing the Sitenotices, which essentially
say "This guy is from X and contributes to Y topics. You can contribute on
your favorite topics too"

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> Untill July, Site notice in Tamil Wikpedia used to give only prominent
> links to Fonts / typing tutorial / Village pump. Occasionally when
> meet-ups/workshops happen, we would announce them. We thought to put this
> system into good use and we are already seeing positive results.
>
> Starting July we introduced "Please correct errors, you too can edit".
> There was a significant jump in anonymous edits in the weeks that followed.
> After discussions, we planned to showcase faces of Tamil Wikipedia.
>
> The idea was to put a notice featuring a picture, brief profile on editing
> topics and suggesting one to start creating articles[1]. The short profile
> showcased the diversity of editors across region / age / interests.Putting
> faces of Tamil Wikipedians into sitenotice was not a big effort since we
> already had profiles of people featured on main page. We just needed to
> summarize them into a couple of lines. We have got atleast 10-15 new
> contributors (> 50 edits and continuing) through this exercise. One editor
> who came in after this drive is editing prolificly and already has 2000
> edits now in ~ 2 months and is now being featured on the main page :) We had
> more new users signing up as registered users. We roll over 4-5 banners over
> a parser code during each campaign, so that people dont get the same banner
> all the time.
>
> Now we have separate notices for logged in / anonymous users. While
> anonymous users get "Contribute" campaign with faces of tamil wiki with
> Anonnotice[2], logged in users get messages about policies / help pages /
> talk pages / DYK etc with help of Sitenotice[3]. DYK nominations has seem a
> jump off late with 100+ entries coming in from contributors who didnt know
> about it after the notice. We plan to introduce policies of Wikipedia slowly
> through these notices, so editors who come in are aware of them. At present
> we lack extensive help pages, and plan to expand them as part of this
> exercise which will also improve help pages coverage in parallel.
>
> There was a posting related to same on the list way back in Nov / Dec 2010
> regarding Contribute Indic campaign[4] central notices by Salmaan, We find
> these localized notices too work well and might be a good idea for other
> Indic wiki's to try it out.
>
> [1] http://defn.me/r/ta/2gav
> [2] http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediawiki:Sitenotice
> [3] http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediawiki:Anonnotice
> [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/Contribute_Indic
>
> --
> Regards
> Srikanth.L
>
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Notices on Tamil Wikipedia

[Gautam John]

You know, this is pretty awesome. It's an idea I hadn't even thought
of till I read it here.

Would love to see the data - particular sitenotices to spikes in contributions.

Thank you.

Best,

Gautam

http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html




On 12 September 2011 16:38, Srikanth Lakshmanan  wrote:
> Hello all,
> Untill July, Site notice in Tamil Wikpedia used to give only prominent links
> to Fonts / typing tutorial / Village pump. Occasionally when
> meet-ups/workshops happen, we would announce them. We thought to put this
> system into good use and we are already seeing positive results.
>
> Starting July we introduced "Please correct errors, you too can edit". There
> was a significant jump in anonymous edits in the weeks that followed. After
> discussions, we planned to showcase faces of Tamil Wikipedia.
> The idea was to put a notice featuring a picture, brief profile on editing
> topics and suggesting one to start creating articles[1]. The short profile
> showcased the diversity of editors across region / age / interests.Putting
> faces of Tamil Wikipedians into sitenotice was not a big effort since we
> already had profiles of people featured on main page. We just needed to
> summarize them into a couple of lines. We have got atleast 10-15 new
> contributors (> 50 edits and continuing) through this exercise. One editor
> who came in after this drive is editing prolificly and already has 2000
> edits now in ~ 2 months and is now being featured on the main page :) We had
> more new users signing up as registered users. We roll over 4-5 banners over
> a parser code during each campaign, so that people dont get the same banner
> all the time.
> Now we have separate notices for logged in / anonymous users. While
> anonymous users get "Contribute" campaign with faces of tamil wiki with
> Anonnotice[2], logged in users get messages about policies / help pages /
> talk pages / DYK etc with help of Sitenotice[3]. DYK nominations has seem a
> jump off late with 100+ entries coming in from contributors who didnt know
> about it after the notice. We plan to introduce policies of Wikipedia slowly
> through these notices, so editors who come in are aware of them. At present
> we lack extensive help pages, and plan to expand them as part of this
> exercise which will also improve help pages coverage in parallel.
> There was a posting related to same on the list way back in Nov / Dec 2010
> regarding Contribute Indic campaign[4] central notices by Salmaan, We find
> these localized notices too work well and might be a good idea for other
> Indic wiki's to try it out.
> [1] http://defn.me/r/ta/2gav
> [2] http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediawiki:Sitenotice
> [3] http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediawiki:Anonnotice
> [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/Contribute_Indic
> --
> Regards
> Srikanth.L
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>

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Notices on Tamil Wikipedia

[Bala Jeyaraman]

>>Would love to see the data - particular sitenotices to spikes in
contributions.

Gah! we haven't done a systematic recording as we werent prepared for it (we
werent sure how this thing would turn out). If you would accept
"eyewitness/anecdotal impressions", the following happened: (Take with many
pinches of salt and heavy skepticism)

1) The first  "if you see an error, correct it" anon notice sort of doubled
anon edits. It is a small base number, so i dont think we can infer anything
statistically from this - every day about 10-15 anon edits used to happen in
Ta wiki (out of a total 600 manual non-bot edits). It increased to around
30-40  a day when this notice was up.

2) The "this guy edits X, you can edit too" campaign has increased the
"number of editors who have made 1 edit in the past 30 days" from 200-210
to 250-260

3) The nominate your article for DYK has gained five new DYK contributors
with nearly 50 new dyk nominations in three weeks. (Earlier it was a ghost
town, with only two-three of us involved in DYK maintenance).

4) Again by my impression we are suddenly seeing new persistent contributors
- not driveby's - people who stick around beyond the first experiments and
who actually ask questions and try more and more new things.  If i were to
hazard a guess, we have gained about 5 new contributors in the past month
alone who have done more than 100 edits.

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 5:05 PM, Gautam John wrote:

> You know, this is pretty awesome. It's an idea I hadn't even thought
> of till I read it here.
>
> Would love to see the data - particular sitenotices to spikes in
> contributions.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Best,
>
> Gautam
> 
> http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html
>
>
>
>
> On 12 September 2011 16:38, Srikanth Lakshmanan 
> wrote:
> > Hello all,
> > Untill July, Site notice in Tamil Wikpedia used to give only prominent
> links
> > to Fonts / typing tutorial / Village pump. Occasionally when
> > meet-ups/workshops happen, we would announce them. We thought to put this
> > system into good use and we are already seeing positive results.
> >
> > Starting July we introduced "Please correct errors, you too can edit".
> There
> > was a significant jump in anonymous edits in the weeks that followed.
> After
> > discussions, we planned to showcase faces of Tamil Wikipedia.
> > The idea was to put a notice featuring a picture, brief profile on
> editing
> > topics and suggesting one to start creating articles[1]. The short
> profile
> > showcased the diversity of editors across region / age /
> interests.Putting
> > faces of Tamil Wikipedians into sitenotice was not a big effort since we
> > already had profiles of people featured on main page. We just needed to
> > summarize them into a couple of lines. We have got atleast 10-15 new
> > contributors (> 50 edits and continuing) through this exercise. One
> editor
> > who came in after this drive is editing prolificly and already has 2000
> > edits now in ~ 2 months and is now being featured on the main page :) We
> had
> > more new users signing up as registered users. We roll over 4-5 banners
> over
> > a parser code during each campaign, so that people dont get the same
> banner
> > all the time.
> > Now we have separate notices for logged in / anonymous users. While
> > anonymous users get "Contribute" campaign with faces of tamil wiki with
> > Anonnotice[2], logged in users get messages about policies / help pages /
> > talk pages / DYK etc with help of Sitenotice[3]. DYK nominations has seem
> a
> > jump off late with 100+ entries coming in from contributors who didnt
> know
> > about it after the notice. We plan to introduce policies of Wikipedia
> slowly
> > through these notices, so editors who come in are aware of them. At
> present
> > we lack extensive help pages, and plan to expand them as part of this
> > exercise which will also improve help pages coverage in parallel.
> > There was a posting related to same on the list way back in Nov / Dec
> 2010
> > regarding Contribute Indic campaign[4] central notices by Salmaan, We
> find
> > these localized notices too work well and might be a good idea for other
> > Indic wiki's to try it out.
> > [1] http://defn.me/r/ta/2gav
> > [2] http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediawiki:Sitenotice
> > [3] http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediawiki:Anonnotice
> > [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/Contribute_Indic
> > --
> > Regards
> > Srikanth.L
> > ___
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> >
> >
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Notices on Tamil Wikipedia

[Arjuna Rao Chavala]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> Untill July, Site notice in Tamil Wikpedia used to give only prominent
> links to Fonts / typing tutorial / Village pump. Occasionally when
> meet-ups/workshops happen, we would announce them. We thought to put this
> system into good use and we are already seeing positive results.
>
> --cut--
>

Thanks for sharing. I am glad to see the effectiveness of Wikipedian
Profile  and other initiatives

In Telugu we featured Wikipedians in the form of an e-interview in our
newsletter/e-zine "TeluguWIki", which helped only  to a limited extent as
the e-zine does not have regular periodicity as per design.

Cheers
Arjun
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Notices on Tamil Wikipedia

[Srikanth Lakshmanan]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 17:05, Gautam John  wrote:

> You know, this is pretty awesome. It's an idea I hadn't even thought
> of till I read it here.
>
Nothing new except "Faces of Tamil Wikipedia". IIRC Even India programs has
this somewhere in their agenda[1] (Hisham, Hi !).


> Would love to see the data - particular sitenotices to spikes in
> contributions.
>

Infact the idea of featuring people in lots was to find some pattern, but we
could find any spikes. The hit ratio of Create First article page linked on
Anon notices managed to get 100-150 clicks a day on average.But we directly
couldnt link to contributions since it involved manual effort / estimate.
[2]. An extension which allows tracking campaigns like this may be useful.
There is Akshay's GSoC work which kind of tracks sign-ups through referral
campaigns, but we need something more inside Wikipedia which tracks these
campaigns.


[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs#Digital_Outreach
[2] http://stats.grok.se/ta/201108/விக்கிப்பீடியா:முதல்_கட்டுரை

-- 
Regards
Srikanth.L
http://srik.me
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Notices on Tamil Wikipedia

[Gautam John]

On 12 September 2011 17:19, Bala Jeyaraman  wrote:

> Gah! we haven't done a systematic recording as we werent prepared for it (we
> werent sure how this thing would turn out). If you would accept
> "eyewitness/anecdotal impressions", the following happened: (Take with many
> pinches of salt and heavy skepticism)

This is really interesting stuff. Thanks, Bala.

Thank you.

Best,

Gautam

http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Ashwin Baindur]

I agree with Gautam in that just "copyvio" is not the issue. It is the issue
of "copyright violation, plagiarism and intellectual dishonesty". It needs
to be tackled by teaching the skills of citation, paraphrasing and the many
acceptable and unacceptable ways to reflect copied text and ideas in
Wikipedia articles.

Warm regards,

Ashwin Baindur
--


On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 4:57 PM, Gautam John wrote:

> On 12 September 2011 16:47, Theo10011  wrote:
>
> > Copyright violations aren't only important from an
> academic plagiarism point
> > of view but also legal and ethical, you seem to be only focusing on text
> > based violation in Academia maybe. Commons users and admins spend the
> better
> > part of their time educating themselves and dealing with these violations
> > from different countries not because of some honesty issues
> but real legal
> > ones.Violations more often than not, can lead to court cases, damages and
> > expose the project to liability.
>
> No doubt but the Commons/Source model is broken for cases like India
> where documents are in the public domain here but not in the USA. That
> said, I digress. I agree with you on the legal issues around copyvio
> and it is important from the WMF's point of view since they carry the
> can on this. What I was uncomfortable with was what I saw as perhaps
> an over-reaction to the issue. Sure, "rather safe than sorry" is a
> possible answer but it's not one I favour because we tend to err too
> much on the side of caution.
>
> > already complied with located here[1]. For images, I can attest to
> spending
> > several hundred hours talking on IRC and looking for copyright terms of
> > different countries to comply with.
>
> No doubt, Theo and it's very important work too.
>
> > seriously. I am not sure if "Intellectual honesty" means ethics in this
> > context but I would disagree if that is what WMF and other Wikipedians
> would
> > be concerned about, it's really the legal liability that they expose WMF
> and
> > projects to. Maybe Hisham can clarify.
>
> Here's is what I was highlighting - yes, the issue of copyvio is
> important but given that this was in the context of an educational
> program, the larger issue ought to have been in the context of
> education - plagiarism and intellectual honesty and then about
> copyvio. If you're going to talk about copyvio as the most important
> element within an education program, it has a bearing on issues
> outside of just the Wikimedia movement and is a much larger
> discussion.
>
> >> > Second, if we don't uphold the "WMF policies" (they are actually
> project
> >> > policies, not the foundation's) in an officially sanctioned and
> financed
> >> > program, then who will?
>
> Again - I'm not saying they don't matter. I'm saying the priorities
> are not in order.
>
> > As I saw it, you stated that copyright violations are no big deal,
> > especially in India and the more important thing is being honest
> > (Intellectually) when someone plagiarizes or something to that effect.
>
> I think I have explained myself, above. Copyvio is important but in
> the current context, there are other elements that should have first
> been considered.
>
> > I am well aware of your position as a open-source book publisher and a
> > Creative commons hero along with someone I respect, that was why I found
> > your position very surprising on this issue.
>
> Appreciate your kind words, Theo.
>
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Hisham Mundol]

On Sep 12, 2011, at 4:47 PM, Theo10011 wrote:

>  I am not sure if "Intellectual honesty" means ethics in this context but I 
> would disagree if that is what WMF and other Wikipedians would be concerned 
> about, it's really the legal liability that they expose WMF and projects to. 
> Maybe Hisham can clarify.

To be fair, the actions taken were in in the context that this is an education 
program - and it's important that the benefits that students can accrue - of 
stronger research, better writing and improved critical thinking skills - are 
actually realized by students.  This is what we are trying to encourage.  
Copy-pasting will not add any value to students.
> 
> 
> I am well aware of your position as a open-source book publisher and a 
> Creative commons hero along with someone I respect, that was why I found your 
> position very surprising on this issue.
> 
> Also, Hi Hisham, Nice to see you avoided replying to my comment alone. ;)

Hello Theo!  I shall shortly make amends for this remiss...

> 
> Theo
> 
> [1]http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:DMCA 
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Hisham Mundol]

On Sep 12, 2011, at 3:33 PM, Theo10011 wrote:

> I beg to differ Gautum. Since, it was made part of the curriculum this almost 
> constitutes as cheating. I am not sure about lofty first world standards but
> I would be failed for cheating just about anywhere in the world.

It's taking a while for some newbie student editors to figure out how to edit 
Wikipedia - and aspects like citation and paraphrasing.  They're working at - 
and I have personally met a bunch of them who're working really hard at it.  
Some are struggling with English.  Some are struggling with getting computer / 
Internet access.  Some are struggling with markups.  …but they're working at 
it! 

> 
> Second, if we don't uphold the "WMF policies" (they are actually project 
> policies, not the foundation's) in an officially sanctioned and financed 
> program, then who will?
> 
> If we were to take this idea further, why respect any local copyright at all? 
> or at least the one in Global South. We can just add copyrighted images and 
> books right off from anywhere, forget about CC or any attempt at working on 
> Open-source licenses. 
> 
> As always, I agree with Beria. If those student were to be graded for this 
> project, they should be failed.

This aspect is solely at the discretion of the faculty - as it should be.  I do 
know that faculty members are taking it seriously.



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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Hisham Mundol]

On Sep 12, 2011, at 5:01 PM, Naveen Francis wrote:

> Hi Hisham,
> 
> Can you please inform the people who are regularly editing Indian Articles 
> about the Online Ambassador program before closing the dates for the same ?

Sure, Navin.  The application form is at
https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEdtdG5ObU9mMm5oZno3MExDc3lEZHc6MA

For context on this, pls see 
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-September/004299.html

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program

[Hisham Mundol]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 6:09 PM, Ashwin Baindur wrote:

> It needs to be tackled by teaching the skills of citation, paraphrasing and
> the many acceptable and unacceptable ways to reflect copied text and ideas
> in Wikipedia articles.
>
> Agreed fully.
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Notices on Tamil Wikipedia

[Naveen Francis]

Bow to beautiful mind behind this.

Can you we do the same thing in Social media (facebook page) ? Will it be
helpful for Indic Languages ?
http://www.facebook.com/WikimediaIndia

Thanks,
Naveen Francis


On 12 September 2011 18:07, Gautam John  wrote:

> On 12 September 2011 17:19, Bala Jeyaraman  wrote:
>
> > Gah! we haven't done a systematic recording as we werent prepared for it
> (we
> > werent sure how this thing would turn out). If you would accept
> > "eyewitness/anecdotal impressions", the following happened: (Take with
> many
> > pinches of salt and heavy skepticism)
>
> This is really interesting stuff. Thanks, Bala.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Best,
>
> Gautam
> 
> http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html
>
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Offline-l] Arrangements for Wikimedia Offline Session today

[Jessie Wild]

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 10:29 AM, Subhashish Panigrahi  wrote:

> Thanks Jessie,
>
> Great tools. And I am happy to inform you that translation for Odia (Oriya)
> for Kiwix is over, Srikant from odia Wiki community is trying to revive
> Ubuntu again by spreading the message to bring out more active translating
> people.
>
>
Fantastic news!



-- 
*Jessie Wild
Global Development, Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
*
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[Wikimediaindia-l] 37th Bangalore Wiki Meetup Summary

[Subhashish Panigrahi]

Hi All,


Here is a abridged summary of the 37th Bangalore Wiki Meetup Summary
on 11thSeptember 2011 at CIS, Bangalore


*Talk: Technology related issues in Wiki projects and their solutions (By
Santhosh Thottingal)*

*
*

This Skype session was presented by the foundation member Santhosh
Thottingal.  First of all he was formally greeted by the Wikipedians from
Bangalore for the new position. Santhosh introduced the Narayam project and
its advancements, participation of Malayalam Wikimedian Junaid.V for the
development of typing tools for all the Indian Wikimedia projects and
Myanmar Wikipedia, fixing several bugs and further improvements.


Then answering a question raised by Naveen Francis about how foundation is
going to take initiatives for solving display problems for Iphone/Android
based handheld devices he explained how this technological gaps would be
narrowed in the coming days though foundation doesn’t have any project soon
specifically for this project. FYI the latest Iphone 4 and Android 2.0
supports Indic font rendering while Android 2.2 has rendering issues.


As there are many users who are failing to use Indic Wikipedias because of
font and rendering related issues Santhosh shared his experience, past
issues and their solutions. He also has shared how the typographer of the
Sourashtra language font has come up to release it in PD so that it could be
used by all. The current project for web fonts especially for Indic fonts
have successfully been tested in
www.Translatewiki.netwhich will be soon
launched for all the Indic Wikipedias. The web font
project has even gone beyond the Indic WPs and is also successful for
Hebrew, few

European languages and Myanmar which has rendering issues even in Win 7.


Santhosh also shared his experience related to Text-To-Speech application
development for Indian languages which would be a boon for the visually
impaired people. There would be a common high volume word and phonetic sound
database which would be used to generate downloadable mp3/ogv files so the
Wikipedia articles could be converted to audio files. Though the complexity
of Indian languages doesn’t make this an easy task there had been lot of
advancements in this project which is available for testing at www.silpa.in.


Santhosh explained the thought of outreach programs such as Wiki Maratrhon
to bring more developers into the community which would be one of his talks
in the Mumbai WCI who will address issues in Indian language Wikipedias.


Then he moved onto question based discussion about OCR (Optical character
Reader) and machine translation or TDI, expllained the complexity of the
developing tools to for Indic languages.

Then there was a discussion about WikiProjectIndia by Naveen Francis. Naveen
explained the hierarchy of the project, campus collaborations like
Symbiosis, Pune for Economy subject under this major project. He also
focussed how outreach programs driven in both regional as well as in English
Wikipedia to bring more editors into the project which would be beneficial
for all the Wikipedias. Wikimedians also discussed glimpses of using
different tools in Wiki, Assessment, Analysis of web hits for regional Wiki.


Then there was a small discussion for the regional Wikipedias, how more
editing sessions would help developing Wikipedias. Subha explained the
statistics of Odia Wikipedia followed by a discussion for promoting regional
Wikipedia using social sites like Facebook, taking the Wikipedias to school
children and the government for creating bigger Wiki projects.


regards
*
ସୁଭପାSubhaPa
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ
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..
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[Wikimediaindia-l] Tamil Nadu laptops to have FOSS

[Pradeep Mohandas]

hi,

Just saw this update from Vivek Cherian, a former Mumbai community member
who is now working in Chennai, on Facebook:

Just back from a meeting with the IT Secretary Department of Information
Technology, Government of Tamil Nadu. The happy news is that a FOSS OS will
be used in the Laptops planned to be distributed by the Tamil Nadu
Government to School students.


This is followed with the official notification sent to the press barely
half an hour later -
http://www.thehindu.com/education/issues/article2423376.ece

warm regards,
Pradeep Mohandas

-- 
Pradeep Mohandas
How Pradeep uses email - http://goo.gl/6v1I9
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Tamil Nadu laptops to have FOSS

[Pradeep Mohandas]

Eeks! Vivek is still a Mumbai community member, :) we're not going to let
him go so easily :)

Pradeep

On 12 September 2011 22:58, Pradeep Mohandas wrote:

> hi,
>
> Just saw this update from Vivek Cherian, a former Mumbai community member
> who is now working in Chennai, on Facebook:
>
> Just back from a meeting with the IT Secretary Department of Information
> Technology, Government of Tamil Nadu. The happy news is that a FOSS OS will
> be used in the Laptops planned to be distributed by the Tamil Nadu
> Government to School students.
>
>
> This is followed with the official notification sent to the press barely
> half an hour later -
> http://www.thehindu.com/education/issues/article2423376.ece
>
> warm regards,
> Pradeep Mohandas
>
> --
> Pradeep Mohandas
> How Pradeep uses email - http://goo.gl/6v1I9
>
>
>


-- 
Pradeep Mohandas
How Pradeep uses email - http://goo.gl/6v1I9
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] 37th Bangalore Wiki Meetup Summary

[Gautam John]

Hi Subhashish:

As always, thank you so much for putting this together.

Is it possible to also post these reports here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Bangalore/Bangalore37
please? (For this and previous ones that you have so wonderfully
recorded, please?)

Thank you.

Best,

Gautam

http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html




On 12 September 2011 22:22, Subhashish Panigrahi  wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Here is a abridged summary of the 37th Bangalore Wiki Meetup Summary on 11th
> September 2011 at CIS, Bangalore
>
> Talk: Technology related issues in Wiki projects and their solutions (By
> Santhosh Thottingal)
>
> This Skype session was presented by the foundation member Santhosh
> Thottingal.  First of all he was formally greeted by the Wikipedians from
> Bangalore for the new position. Santhosh introduced the Narayam project and
> its advancements, participation of Malayalam Wikimedian Junaid.V for the
> development of typing tools for all the Indian Wikimedia projects and
> Myanmar Wikipedia, fixing several bugs and further improvements.
>
> Then answering a question raised by Naveen Francis about how foundation is
> going to take initiatives for solving display problems for Iphone/Android
> based handheld devices he explained how this technological gaps would be
> narrowed in the coming days though foundation doesn’t have any project soon
> specifically for this project. FYI the latest Iphone 4 and Android 2.0
> supports Indic font rendering while Android 2.2 has rendering issues.
>
> As there are many users who are failing to use Indic Wikipedias because of
> font and rendering related issues Santhosh shared his experience, past
> issues and their solutions. He also has shared how the typographer of the
> Sourashtra language font has come up to release it in PD so that it could be
> used by all. The current project for web fonts especially for Indic fonts
> have successfully been tested in www.Translatewiki.net which will be soon
> launched for all the Indic Wikipedias. The web font project has even gone
> beyond the Indic WPs and is also successful for Hebrew, few
>
> European languages and Myanmar which has rendering issues even in Win 7.
>
> Santhosh also shared his experience related to Text-To-Speech application
> development for Indian languages which would be a boon for the visually
> impaired people. There would be a common high volume word and phonetic sound
> database which would be used to generate downloadable mp3/ogv files so the
> Wikipedia articles could be converted to audio files. Though the complexity
> of Indian languages doesn’t make this an easy task there had been lot of
> advancements in this project which is available for testing at www.silpa.in
> .
>
> Santhosh explained the thought of outreach programs such as Wiki Maratrhon
> to bring more developers into the community which would be one of his talks
> in the Mumbai WCI who will address issues in Indian language Wikipedias.
>
> Then he moved onto question based discussion about OCR (Optical character
> Reader) and machine translation or TDI, expllained the complexity of the
> developing tools to for Indic languages.
>
> Then there was a discussion about WikiProjectIndia by Naveen Francis. Naveen
> explained the hierarchy of the project, campus collaborations like
> Symbiosis, Pune for Economy subject under this major project. He also
> focussed how outreach programs driven in both regional as well as in English
> Wikipedia to bring more editors into the project which would be beneficial
> for all the Wikipedias. Wikimedians also discussed glimpses of using
> different tools in Wiki, Assessment, Analysis of web hits for regional Wiki.
>
> Then there was a small discussion for the regional Wikipedias, how more
> editing sessions would help developing Wikipedias. Subha explained the
> statistics of Odia Wikipedia followed by a discussion for promoting regional
> Wikipedia using social sites like Facebook, taking the Wikipedias to school
> children and the government for creating bigger Wiki projects.
>
> regards
>
> ସୁଭପାSubhaPa
> ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ
> ___
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> facebook.com/OdiaWiki
> Tweet @OdiaWiki
> ..
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> wikimedia-in-...@lists.wikimedia.org
>
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>
>

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Press Coverage: Request for Voices & Faces!

[Vivek Murarka]

Hello Hisham, Everyone,
 
Both these articles will go a long way in generating more awareness and 
interest in Wikipedia and its Programs. The Telegraph article is on an fully 
open-access website, while the Times Crest site requires sign-up. I do not know 
if Times Crest is widely known or is available in print. I learned of if from a 
previous post to this list giving the link and also the text of the article.
 
Could the Times Group be requested to also carry the Times Crest article on an 
open site. Respecting copyrights and then given the title/headline of the 
article, I would not like to copy-paste the text from the said previous post. 
Yet, I'd like to share it with a few academics in one or two schools and 
colleges who, I think, would be interested, but may not have read the article. 
[Posting the text on this list though is "Fair Use", imho.]
 
A thought. I wonder how some popular columnists, known for their incisive 
styles and penchant for word-play, would treat [if they decided to] the 
subject/s of these articles.
 
Meanwhile, though probably off-topic on this list, may I share with you in the 
celebration of the lives of two memorable Mumbaikars, recently passed; with 
this : 
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/erratica/entry/conqueror-of-maladies .
 
Thanks & Regards,
 
VivekM
[iqp,ra]
 
===
On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:38:04 +0530
Hisham Mundol  wrote:
Hi Folks

In the last couple of days, we've had a couple of really insightful, 
well-written articles on Wikipedia and you, the community.  ...
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[Wikimediaindia-l] Narayam is live

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
I am really happy that Narayam, the extension that provides you with input
methods for your languages is live for some of them on some of the projects.
Have a look and let us know how you like it.
Thanks,
GerardM

'wmgUseNarayam' =>
array(

'default' =>
false,

'testwiki' =>
true,

'mlwikiquote' =>
true,

'mlwikibooks' =>
true,

'mlwiktionary' =>
true,

'mlwikisource' =>
true,

'mlwiki' =>
true,

'tawikibooks' =>
true,

'tawikisource' =>
true,

'tawiktionary' =>
true,

'sawiki' =>
true,

'sawikibooks' =>
true,

'sawikisource' =>
true,

'sawiktionary' => true,
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikimedia-in-blr] 37th Bangalore Wiki Meetup Summary

[Arun Ramarathnam]

Thanks for the excellent summary.

Regards
Arun



On 12-Sep-2011, at 10:22 PM, Subhashish Panigrahi  wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> 
> 
> Here is a abridged summary of the 37th Bangalore Wiki Meetup Summary on 11th 
> September 2011 at CIS, Bangalore
> 
> 
> 
> Talk: Technology related issues in Wiki projects and their solutions (By 
> Santhosh Thottingal)
> 
> 
> 
> This Skype session was presented by the foundation member Santhosh 
> Thottingal.  First of all he was formally greeted by the Wikipedians from 
> Bangalore for the new position. Santhosh introduced the Narayam project and 
> its advancements, participation of Malayalam Wikimedian Junaid.V for the 
> development of typing tools for all the Indian Wikimedia projects and Myanmar 
> Wikipedia, fixing several bugs and further improvements.
> 
> 
> 
> Then answering a question raised by Naveen Francis about how foundation is 
> going to take initiatives for solving display problems for Iphone/Android 
> based handheld devices he explained how this technological gaps would be 
> narrowed in the coming days though foundation doesn’t have any project soon 
> specifically for this project. FYI the latest Iphone 4 and Android 2.0 
> supports Indic font rendering while Android 2.2 has rendering issues.
> 
> 
> 
> As there are many users who are failing to use Indic Wikipedias because of 
> font and rendering related issues Santhosh shared his experience, past issues 
> and their solutions. He also has shared how the typographer of the Sourashtra 
> language font has come up to release it in PD so that it could be used by 
> all. The current project for web fonts especially for Indic fonts have 
> successfully been tested in www.Translatewiki.net which will be soon launched 
> for all the Indic Wikipedias. The web font project has even gone beyond the 
> Indic WPs and is also successful for Hebrew, few 
> 
> European languages and Myanmar which has rendering issues even in Win 7.
> 
> 
> 
> Santhosh also shared his experience related to Text-To-Speech application 
> development for Indian languages which would be a boon for the visually 
> impaired people. There would be a common high volume word and phonetic sound 
> database which would be used to generate downloadable mp3/ogv files so the 
> Wikipedia articles could be converted to audio files. Though the complexity 
> of Indian languages doesn’t make this an easy task there had been lot of 
> advancements in this project which is available for testing at www.silpa.in .
> 
> 
> 
> Santhosh explained the thought of outreach programs such as Wiki Maratrhon to 
> bring more developers into the community which would be one of his talks in 
> the Mumbai WCI who will address issues in Indian language Wikipedias.
> 
> 
> 
> Then he moved onto question based discussion about OCR (Optical character 
> Reader) and machine translation or TDI, expllained the complexity of the 
> developing tools to for Indic languages.  
> 
> Then there was a discussion about WikiProjectIndia by Naveen Francis. Naveen 
> explained the hierarchy of the project, campus collaborations like Symbiosis, 
> Pune for Economy subject under this major project. He also focussed how 
> outreach programs driven in both regional as well as in English Wikipedia to 
> bring more editors into the project which would be beneficial for all the 
> Wikipedias. Wikimedians also discussed glimpses of using different tools in 
> Wiki, Assessment, Analysis of web hits for regional Wiki.
> 
> 
> 
> Then there was a small discussion for the regional Wikipedias, how more 
> editing sessions would help developing Wikipedias. Subha explained the 
> statistics of Odia Wikipedia followed by a discussion for promoting regional 
> Wikipedia using social sites like Facebook, taking the Wikipedias to school 
> children and the government for creating bigger Wiki projects.
> 
> 
> 
> regards 
> 
> ସୁଭପାSubhaPa
> ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Narayam is live

[Srikanth Lakshmanan]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 23:46, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Hoi,
> I am really happy that Narayam, the extension that provides you with input
> methods for your languages is live for some of them on some of the projects.
> Have a look and let us know how you like it.
>

Thanks much Gerard for pushing this awesome effort of Santhosh / team into
live on projects. More UX improvements, the typing tool just got better,
Kudos.

'wmgUseNarayam' =>
> array(
>
> 'default' =>
> false,
>
> 'testwiki' =>
> true,
>
> 'mlwikiquote' =>
> true,
>
> 'mlwikibooks' =>
> true,
>
> 'mlwiktionary' =>
> true,
>
> 'mlwikisource' =>
> true,
>
> 'mlwiki' =>
> true,
>
> 'tawikibooks' =>
> true,
>
> 'tawikisource' => true,

Yes,




> 'tawiktionary' =>
> true,




No, probably you got some other version,Tamil Wiktionary is not yet live.
Its next big thing after Wikipedia, so we would enable after testing on
Wikibooks / Wikisource. First impressions on testing, no issues found,
however we would do a thorough testing this time, since we would like to
have Narayam on all Tamil wiki projects.

-- 
Regards
Srikanth.L
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[Wikimediaindia-l] Narayam input methods updated

[Siebrand Mazeland (WMF)]

Dear all,

The Wikimedia Localisation team and volunteer Junaidp have taken an
important hurdle towards better support for Indic languages. After a rocky
start with the Narayam[1] extension on the Tamil language Wikipedia, today a
new version of Narayam was deployed on several wikis in Indic languages and
added to ta.wikisource and ta.wikibooks[2]. It also features a new
interface.

Please give it a try and provide feedback[3] in feature requests, bug
reports. Praise is allowed to go to this list ;). We expect to be adding
many more keyboard mappings in the near future. If you are particularly
looking forward to one, please do not hesitate to make a request for it or
submit a patch you get it even quicker[3].

-- 
Siebrand Mazeland
Product Manager Localisation
Wikimedia Foundation

M: +31 6 50 69 1239
Skype: siebrand

[1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Narayam
[2] mlwikiquote, mlwikibooks, mlwiktionary, mlwikisource, mlwiki,
tawikibooks, tawikisource, sawiki, sawikibooks, sawikisource, sawiktionary
[3]
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=MediaWiki%20extensions(choose
component "Narayam")
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Narayam is live

[Rajesh Pandey]

Great news, I hope this will be implemented in other Wikipedia as well.

On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 12:25 AM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 23:46, Gerard Meijssen 
> wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> I am really happy that Narayam, the extension that provides you with input
>> methods for your languages is live for some of them on some of the projects.
>> Have a look and let us know how you like it.
>>
>
> Thanks much Gerard for pushing this awesome effort of Santhosh / team into
> live on projects. More UX improvements, the typing tool just got better,
> Kudos.
>
> 'wmgUseNarayam' =>
>> array(
>>
>> 'default' =>
>> false,
>>
>> 'testwiki' =>
>> true,
>>
>> 'mlwikiquote' =>
>> true,
>>
>> 'mlwikibooks' =>
>> true,
>>
>> 'mlwiktionary' =>
>> true,
>>
>> 'mlwikisource' =>
>> true,
>>
>> 'mlwiki' =>
>> true,
>>
>> 'tawikibooks' =>
>> true,
>>
>> 'tawikisource' => true,
>
> Yes,
>
>
>
>
>> 'tawiktionary' =>
>> true,
>
>
>
>
> No, probably you got some other version,Tamil Wiktionary is not yet live.
> Its next big thing after Wikipedia, so we would enable after testing on
> Wikibooks / Wikisource. First impressions on testing, no issues found,
> however we would do a thorough testing this time, since we would like to
> have Narayam on all Tamil wiki projects.
>
> --
> Regards
> Srikanth.L
>
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>
>


-- 
Rajesh Pandey
User:RajeshPandey
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Press Coverage: Request for Voices & Faces!

[Hisham Mundol]

On Sep 12, 2011, at 11:29 PM, Vivek Murarka wrote:



> Hello Hisham, Everyone,
>  
> 
> Could the Times Group be requested to also carry the Times Crest article on 
> an open site. Respecting copyrights and then given the title/headline of the 
> article, I would not like to copy-paste the text from the said previous post. 
> Yet, I'd like to share it with a few academics in one or two schools and 
> colleges who, I think, would be interested, but may not have read the 
> article. [Posting the text on this list though is "Fair Use", imho.]
>  
>  
> Meanwhile, though probably off-topic on this list, may I share with you in 
> the celebration of the lives of two memorable Mumbaikars, recently passed; 
> with this : 
> http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/erratica/entry/conqueror-of-maladies 
> .
>  


Not sure about asking the Times Group.  If you notice the small print when you 
logged in, it said Crest is free for now - but they'll charge later.

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