Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Let's *Talk*
+1
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 09:52, Hisham hmun...@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Folks
I'm deliberately opening a new mail chain on this. This is at the risk of
me being told off for doing so - but I believe that email protocol is one
thing - but communication philosophy is (arguably) even more critical.
I (and personally upsetting to me, others at India Programs - namely
Nitika the Campus Ambassadors) have taken some beating over the past few
days. Some has been personal and not been circumspect or constructive;
not pretty. I have been touched by the offlist messages of comfort and
support that I and the others have got.
I am exceedingly worried about the impact it has had on team morale. To
all those who have criticised the India Education Program, spare a thought
for the volunteers who have helped out on this. I want to tell the Campus
Ambassadors to be strong and keep your chins up. You guys have been
incredible. Hand on heart, you have given your hearts and souls and have
conducted probably the single biggest Wikipedia outreach program in the
world. (btw, I really don't care if someone wants to tag this as {citation
required.}) You have taken time out of your working lives and college
days. I know how tough it's been - conducting more than 100 in-class
sessions, working with so many students and faculty, reaching out on email
and talk pages and SMS and mobile calls and social networks and in
canteens, poring over student entries, learning Wikipedia policies,
figuring out new tools to help your work, building relationships with
other editors across the globe, doing the back-breaking documentation
that's been required on project course pages, and I can go on and on and
on. I know that sustaining this level of motivation and energy over months
has been hard on you. I also know some of you faltered. I know some of
you wanted to scream and kick someone some times, maybe even many people
many times! Keep the faith, guys.
I am sorry for the personal attack on Nitika. To her, I want to publicly
apologise. I know her to be hard-working, diligent, honest, competent and
an all-round professional. She's new and she's learning and has and will
make mistakes - like all of us do. It is fantastic to have her on the
team. Period.
The program is a pilot - and we made a ton of mistakes. Sorry, let me
rephrase that. I led the initiative so all responsibility should be mine.
I made a ton of mistakes. I promise the following. We will have a
thorough, honest and fact based evaluation. We will be open to make all
the changes that are required. We will not let the events of the past few
days force us into a bunker mentality. We will be open and we will be
intellectually rigorous. We will learn and we will improve. The India
opportunity is massive - and our ambitions are huge. It is also fraught
with challenges. Unless we try and do things - new and tough and complex
things - we will never be able to realise our true potential.
I know that some who have participated in these exchanges are driven by an
awe-inspiring love and passion for Wikipedia. I urge you to continue to
come forward and work with others and us. Come forward early though - and
stay engaged through the journey. It will have ups and downs.
On communication, I urge everyone to maintain WP:CIVILITY and WP:NPOV in
all our interactions. On this - and to be fair - quite a few other
interactions recently on totally unrelated topics (and involving a whole
host of others), I daresay we have drifted from core Wikipedia principles.
These should apply to us to all our community's interactions as
religiously as we apply them to our projects.
I would urge folks who agree with me to write back. Even a +1 will do.
Let's hear the voices of the quieter folks. Let's hear from the folks who
don't always get involved in mailing list exchanges out of either
apprehension or apathy. Let's move forward.
Warm Regards,
hisham
___
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
___
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Let's *Talk*
+1
From one another of those silent spectator or quiet one.. :)
A pilot program is undertaken to always test the situation and gauge how
it would deliver in a real life situation. That is exactly why it is
known as a pilot or a UAT or a test.
With due respect to others in the thread, whoever has been expressing
their opinions and thoughts, lets be honest about the fact that the Pune
Pilot has been a success, a resounding success. The pilot was intended
to be a learning experience and you should be taking back that learning
to fine tune the future initiatives. It needs to be gauged on the
learning that has been gained and nothing else, absolutely nothing else
should be the benchmark.
Let us only look at what has been gained and not at what has been lost.
May be that is the Indian mentality, but that is a mentality which is
encouraging for all those CA's to contribute further and evolve
themselves as better Wikipedians.
Abhi
On 15-Nov-2011 9:52 AM, Hisham wrote:
Hi Folks
I'm deliberately opening a new mail chain on this. This is at the
risk of me being told off for doing so - but I believe that email
protocol is one thing - but communication philosophy is (arguably)
even more critical.
I (and personally upsetting to me, others at India Programs - namely
Nitika the Campus Ambassadors) have taken some beating over the past
few days. Some has been personal and not been circumspect or
constructive; not pretty. I have been touched by the offlist messages
of comfort and support that I and the others have got.
I am exceedingly worried about the impact it has had on team morale.
To all those who have criticised the India Education Program, spare a
thought for the volunteers who have helped out on this. I want to
tell the Campus Ambassadors to be strong and keep your chins up. You
guys have been incredible. Hand on heart, you have given your hearts
and souls and have conducted probably the single biggest Wikipedia
outreach program in the world. (btw, I really don't care if someone
wants to tag this as {citation required.}) You have taken time out of
your working lives and college days. I know how tough it's been -
conducting more than 100 in-class sessions, working with so many
students and faculty, reaching out on email and talk pages and SMS and
mobile calls and social networks and in canteens, poring over student
entries, learning Wikipedia policies, figuring out new tools to help
your work, building relationships with other editors across the
globe, doing the back-breaking documentation that's been required on
project course pages, and I can go on and on and on. I know that
sustaining this level of motivation and energy over months has been
hard on you. I also know some of you faltered. I know some of you
wanted to scream and kick someone some times, maybe even many people
many times! Keep the faith, guys.
I am sorry for the personal attack on Nitika. To her, I want to
publicly apologise. I know her to be hard-working, diligent, honest,
competent and an all-round professional. She's new and she's learning
and has and will make mistakes - like all of us do. It is fantastic
to have her on the team. Period.
The program is a pilot - and we made a ton of mistakes. Sorry, let me
rephrase that. I led the initiative so all responsibility should be
mine. I made a ton of mistakes. I promise the following. We will
have a thorough, honest and fact based evaluation. We will be open to
make all the changes that are required. We will not let the events of
the past few days force us into a bunker mentality. We will be open
and we will be intellectually rigorous. We will learn and we will
improve. The India opportunity is massive - and our ambitions are
huge. It is also fraught with challenges. Unless we try and do
things - new and tough and complex things - we will never be able to
realise our true potential.
I know that some who have participated in these exchanges are driven
by an awe-inspiring love and passion for Wikipedia. I urge you to
continue to come forward and work with others and us. Come forward
early though - and stay engaged through the journey. It will have ups
and downs.
On communication, I urge everyone to maintain WP:CIVILITY and WP:NPOV
in all our interactions. On this - and to be fair - quite a few other
interactions recently on totally unrelated topics (and involving a
whole host of others), I daresay we have drifted from core Wikipedia
principles. These should apply to us to all our community's
interactions as religiously as we apply them to our projects.
I would urge folks who agree with me to write back. Even a +1 will
do. Let's hear the voices of the quieter folks. Let's hear from the
folks who don't always get involved in mailing list exchanges out of
either apprehension or apathy. Let's move forward.
Warm Regards,
hisham
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Let's *Talk*
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: And - to stay with the sandbox metaphor from another thread - if the majority of contributors to a university-based program in India can reach won't be able to contribute at an acceptable quality in WP proper, then perhaps it's also time to think about more aggressive sandboxing of contributions early in the game, at least when we're dealing with a course where we either don't know what to expect, or we _do_ based on experiences like the one to date. Possibly even using an external sandbox. If I understand it rightly, Erik points out that one of the questions raised here is the validity of the University-centric approach to this program. Hisham will recall I had queried this approach at a meetup way back when. This was before I found that it had a history, being a successful initiative in another milieu. I am sure now, with this experience, we can find ways to make the program work more effectively here, one possibility (not the only one) being shedding the college campus-centric focus, and reaching out more widely to people, in order to welcome more people within the contributory fold. As Abhilash points out, this was a pilot, and it is up to us to evaluate its learnings and move forward from it, not trash it or its participants. -- Vickram Fool On The Hill http://communicall.wordpress.com ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] WikiProject India on English Wikipedia featured on the latest Signpost
Hi, For those who haven't noticed yet, WikiProject India on English Wikipedia is featured on the latest Signpost and also interviews two active contributors RegentsPark and Ashlin ( Ashwin) . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-11-14/WikiProject_report Started in July 2006 by Userr:Ganeshk, WikiProject India was one of the most active WikiProjects on English Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:INDIA All Wikipedians on English Wikipedia, with interest in India related content, are welcome to join and collaborate with the project. Regards Tinu Cherian ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Let's *Talk*
+1 Also enough of fault finding has been done I guess, lets move to Solution now. We ll definitely come back, and we ll come back with a greater impact in which everyone's participation is expected. So henceforth please give solutions rather than finding faults. Sincerely, A Wikipedian Campus Ambassador. On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 4:26 PM, Vickram Crishna vvcris...@radiophony.comwrote: On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: And - to stay with the sandbox metaphor from another thread - if the majority of contributors to a university-based program in India can reach won't be able to contribute at an acceptable quality in WP proper, then perhaps it's also time to think about more aggressive sandboxing of contributions early in the game, at least when we're dealing with a course where we either don't know what to expect, or we _do_ based on experiences like the one to date. Possibly even using an external sandbox. If I understand it rightly, Erik points out that one of the questions raised here is the validity of the University-centric approach to this program. Hisham will recall I had queried this approach at a meetup way back when. This was before I found that it had a history, being a successful initiative in another milieu. I am sure now, with this experience, we can find ways to make the program work more effectively here, one possibility (not the only one) being shedding the college campus-centric focus, and reaching out more widely to people, in order to welcome more people within the contributory fold. As Abhilash points out, this was a pilot, and it is up to us to evaluate its learnings and move forward from it, not trash it or its participants. -- Vickram Fool On The Hill http://communicall.wordpress.com ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l -- Thanks Arnav (ricku). (User:Rangilo_Gujarati) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rangilo_Gujarati ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] The National / UAE : Eager to preserve language, Indians from Kerala embrace Wikipedia
*The National / UAE : Eager to preserve language, Indians from Kerala embrace Wikipedia* http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/south-asia/eager-to-preserve-language-indians-from-kerala-embrace-wikipedia * Eager to preserve their language, Keralites have eagerly responded to Wikipedia's request for submissions in their native language Malayalam.* * * *The campaign to expand Wikipedia offerings in Indian languages is aimed at boosting the website's exposure in India, which, when compared to the rest of the world, remains relatively small.* * * *Of the scores of regional languages in India, Nepali and Hindi speakers have posted the most articles on Wikipedia in these languages. But an active online community of expatriate Keralites has made Malayalam the fastest growing regional language version of Wikipedia.* * * *Keralites are proud of their language and culture. That devotion is driven partly by the Indian government's efforts to promote Hindi, a North Indian language, as the lingua franca of India.* * * *In December last year, there were 90 active editors for the Malayalam-language website. There are now 564. Many joined when Wikipedia launched a campaign dubbed, Malayalam loves Wikipedia that solicited articles and photos from Keralites.* * * *Wikipedia hopes the campaign could become a model to garner similar responses from other regional language speakers in India.* * * *Many of these new editors for the Malayalam Wikimedia site came from Gulf countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. More than 15 per cent of all photo and text contributions came from Keralites based in the Gulf, such as Simy Nazarath, a software sales manager in Dubai. You do it so that the language does not die, he said.* * * *Wikipedia is the fifth most visited site in the world, where content is generated by 90,000 readers from across the world. Despite the global popularity of Wikipedia, the site remains relatively unknown in India. Every month, 400 million people visit the site, but only 14 million are from India.* * * * * *The potential in India is enormous, said Hisham Mundol, a consultant for Wikimedia Foundation's India programmes. The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organisation that pays to operate Wikipedia.* * * *Despite India's potential, getting Indians to read or write articles in their native language is difficult. It is a case of the chicken or the egg, said Mr Mundol. People don't write because there are not enough readers but people don't read because they think pages in their regional language don't exist.* * * *But Malayalam Wikipedia is bucking the trend. It is the most rapidly growing regional language site in India. That is driven partly by the fact that Kerala has the highest literacy rate in the country — 93.9 per cent, according to the 2011 Census of India. English is the language of instruction in most private schools, while the government school courses are taught primarily in Malayalam.* * * *Mr Nazarath finds the process of creating articles deeply rewarding. It is quite fulfilling because if you look at it, not even the best of encyclopedias in the Malayalam language available in India has this many articles.* * * *The Kerala government spent the last 20 years working on an encyclopaedia in Malayalam, but has managed to produce only 3,300 articles. In contrast, Malayalam Wikipedia now has more than 20,000. The state government has eagerly embraced the efforts of the Wikipedians, opening its archives to the website's amateur historians.* * * *Mr Nazarath is one of the longest serving editors of Malayalam Wikipedia. He has written more than 400 articles since he began in 2006.* * * *Mr Nazarath's areas of interest is Indian and Keralite history, especially medieval and ancient history. He both translates from English pages and writes new entries from references in Malayalam history books.* * * *Now, Wikimedia is trying to engage India's elderly to preserve mythology or artists to write about folklore or interest groups to contribute more about fabric and craft techniques. The opportunities are huge, but the question is how do we identify which ones to pursue, said Mr Mundol.* * * *Mr Mundol said that the success of Malayalam Wikipedia could prove to be a benchmark for future efforts by the Wikimedia Foundation in India.* * * *With the Malayalam projects, the emphasis was on community building, on getting new editors.* Regards Tinu Cherian pr...@wikimedia.in http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news *Important Note *: The publisher ( The National ) of the above news article owns the copyrights of the article / content. Request to kindly not reproduce or circulate the content further. The information is only shared only with an internal community who have been featured on this article. All copyrights are duly acknowledged. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Let's *Talk*
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 4:26 PM, Vickram Crishna vvcris...@radiophony.com wrote: On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: And - to stay with the sandbox metaphor from another thread - if the majority of contributors to a university-based program in India can reach won't be able to contribute at an acceptable quality in WP proper, then perhaps it's also time to think about more aggressive sandboxing of contributions early in the game, at least when we're dealing with a course where we either don't know what to expect, or we _do_ based on experiences like the one to date. Possibly even using an external sandbox. If I understand it rightly, Erik points out that one of the questions raised here is the validity of the University-centric approach to this program. Hisham will recall I had queried this approach at a meetup way back when. This was before I found that it had a history, being a successful initiative in another milieu. I am sure now, with this experience, we can find ways to make the program work more effectively here, one possibility (not the only one) being shedding the college campus-centric focus, and reaching out more widely to people, in order to welcome more people within the contributory fold. As Abhilash points out, this was a pilot, and it is up to us to evaluate its learnings and move forward from it, not trash it or its participants. -- Vickram +1 Vickram. I shared the same concerns on assignment based university centric model. In addition I had concerns with omitting indic language wiki contributions from Pune Pilot , which i tried to express in an IRC meetup. Lets move forward with the learnings, but with wide consultations on improved programme plan with the involvement of communities . This whole story , reminds me some experience in FOSS domain When we are volunteering with Free software movement , to spread FOSS in various campuses, the first info we used to provide after any presentation while reaching out to a new campus is sharing information on how to join in local LUG , or initiate a LUG in college. During the same time, companies like SUN was appointing campus ambassadors, and pumping money to promote their open source initiatives, but in a non-collaborative way,through direct links with college administration. Many times FOSS Activists have to fight with this approach of Campus Ambassadors, who does not value the movement or community to get permission for holding a programme in campus . But over time, what sustained is FOSS community initiatives and their mode of budding new developers . Anivar ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimediaindia-l Digest, Vol 41, Issue 49
Pratik, //*All I can say is that EVERY KING WAS ONCE A CRYING BABY. Remember the day when you created your account on wikipedia. With all due respect to your edit count at present and your current status at wiki, you were also a KID on wikipedia at that day. A KID who has grown up now and understands wikipedia well enough. Same is the case with IEP students. Mastering wikipedia and coming to terms with it is not a cakewalk. The students are learning from their mistakes. As far as the Campus Ambassadors are concerned, yes there were a few inactive ones. But there were also many CA's who put their heart and souls into the program. Ram is one of them. In my opinion, judging a person's knowledge about wikipedia by his edit count is not at all fair! I would request you not to get personal. No doubt you are crossing the limits, even you know that. And for everyone who is following this thread, IEP is not dead for sure! It's just that it met with an accident, got deeply wounded. Doctors are doing their job. IEP will be back - stronger and healthier !// All Wikipedias face vandals, trolls and genuinely interested newbies everyday. That is not a problem and part of the growth. It can be managed because the rate of such newcomers is manageable by the existing number of admins. Also, genuinely interested newbie's rate of errors will be much less and they usually correct themselves. But, if you are designing a program to systematically upload content, a lot of care has to be taken an no excuse can be given. No community can easily cleanup such a systematic mess. I can see lot of emotional attachment for the people attached to this IEP project. Please do also remember that a Wikipedia projects is also very dear for its community. If you can't help them, at least don't add to their burden. The same thing happened with Tamil Wikipedia when Google created a lot of trash in the name of helping Indian languages. We are still cleaning that mess. I can very well understand the frustration of the en wiki community which spends so much time cleaning. *Wikipedia is a very organic community. Unless the programs from WMF or any other organization don't understand and adapt to this, they will neither be sustainable or scalable. * I recommend all Wikipedia communities to take a no-nonsense approach to all programs that use them as a testing ground. Volunteer's time are more valuable. Ravi ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] The National / UAE : Eager to preserve language, Indians from Kerala embrace Wikipedia
Go malayalis!!! Proud to be one ;) On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 5:30 PM, CherianTinu Abraham tinucher...@gmail.comwrote: *The National / UAE : Eager to preserve language, Indians from Kerala embrace Wikipedia* http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/south-asia/eager-to-preserve-language-indians-from-kerala-embrace-wikipedia * Eager to preserve their language, Keralites have eagerly responded to Wikipedia's request for submissions in their native language Malayalam.* * * *The campaign to expand Wikipedia offerings in Indian languages is aimed at boosting the website's exposure in India, which, when compared to the rest of the world, remains relatively small.* * * *Of the scores of regional languages in India, Nepali and Hindi speakers have posted the most articles on Wikipedia in these languages. But an active online community of expatriate Keralites has made Malayalam the fastest growing regional language version of Wikipedia.* * * *Keralites are proud of their language and culture. That devotion is driven partly by the Indian government's efforts to promote Hindi, a North Indian language, as the lingua franca of India.* * * *In December last year, there were 90 active editors for the Malayalam-language website. There are now 564. Many joined when Wikipedia launched a campaign dubbed, Malayalam loves Wikipedia that solicited articles and photos from Keralites.* * * *Wikipedia hopes the campaign could become a model to garner similar responses from other regional language speakers in India.* * * *Many of these new editors for the Malayalam Wikimedia site came from Gulf countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. More than 15 per cent of all photo and text contributions came from Keralites based in the Gulf, such as Simy Nazarath, a software sales manager in Dubai. You do it so that the language does not die, he said.* * * *Wikipedia is the fifth most visited site in the world, where content is generated by 90,000 readers from across the world. Despite the global popularity of Wikipedia, the site remains relatively unknown in India. Every month, 400 million people visit the site, but only 14 million are from India.* * * * * *The potential in India is enormous, said Hisham Mundol, a consultant for Wikimedia Foundation's India programmes. The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organisation that pays to operate Wikipedia.* * * *Despite India's potential, getting Indians to read or write articles in their native language is difficult. It is a case of the chicken or the egg, said Mr Mundol. People don't write because there are not enough readers but people don't read because they think pages in their regional language don't exist.* * * *But Malayalam Wikipedia is bucking the trend. It is the most rapidly growing regional language site in India. That is driven partly by the fact that Kerala has the highest literacy rate in the country — 93.9 per cent, according to the 2011 Census of India. English is the language of instruction in most private schools, while the government school courses are taught primarily in Malayalam.* * * *Mr Nazarath finds the process of creating articles deeply rewarding. It is quite fulfilling because if you look at it, not even the best of encyclopedias in the Malayalam language available in India has this many articles.* * * *The Kerala government spent the last 20 years working on an encyclopaedia in Malayalam, but has managed to produce only 3,300 articles. In contrast, Malayalam Wikipedia now has more than 20,000. The state government has eagerly embraced the efforts of the Wikipedians, opening its archives to the website's amateur historians.* * * *Mr Nazarath is one of the longest serving editors of Malayalam Wikipedia. He has written more than 400 articles since he began in 2006.* * * *Mr Nazarath's areas of interest is Indian and Keralite history, especially medieval and ancient history. He both translates from English pages and writes new entries from references in Malayalam history books.* * * *Now, Wikimedia is trying to engage India's elderly to preserve mythology or artists to write about folklore or interest groups to contribute more about fabric and craft techniques. The opportunities are huge, but the question is how do we identify which ones to pursue, said Mr Mundol.* * * *Mr Mundol said that the success of Malayalam Wikipedia could prove to be a benchmark for future efforts by the Wikimedia Foundation in India.* * * *With the Malayalam projects, the emphasis was on community building, on getting new editors.* Regards Tinu Cherian pr...@wikimedia.in http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news *Important Note *: The publisher ( The National ) of the above news article owns the copyrights of the article / content. Request to kindly not reproduce or circulate the content further. The information is only shared only with an internal community who have been
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia India Program Trust
Hisham, There has been much discussion on this already, but this does sound like some *serious* development to someone like me who has been a long time volunteer from India. And perhaps to several other long time contributors from here too, who seem to be staying away from adding their opinion here for a reason. Thinking back about the time years back when many of us were used to spending our personal earnings to organize small scale outreach programs here, things have surely changed now and much of the development in last couple of years has been, to say the least, *overwhelming*. India is now getting to see well funded conferences, the funds are now flowing in for new programs that seem to be keen in quickly 'inducing' a community that otherwise would have taken its own time growing in an organic way. While all this focus on India and the sudden inflow of funds is all quite amazing, this new development seems to indicate that the chapter, which has the potential to better represent the community doesn't get to be at the center stage anymore. When the Chapter was formed, a major decision involved choosing between the open, more democratic legal model of a 'society' and slightly locked-in model of a 'trust'. The Chapter chose the 'society' model which presented more democratic setup despite the paperwork, hassles and the delay it presented. Although Bishaka did mention on an earlier email about the trust, there was nothing much to indicate why specifically the India programs office needs to be registered as a trust. A serious concern in this context is that in a trust, the trustees needn't change. Although new trustees can be elected, the control remains with the initial set of trustees on board. The assets of the trust will be governed by this closed set of trustees who are not subject to elections or restricted to any fixed term unlike the model the chapter is built on. It is rather disturbing and surprising to see none of the volunteers from the community actually voicing their concerns about this. There sure was a huge discussion when the legal model of chapter was in question. I should note here that Wikimedia India Chapter could have started operating earlier than it did had we gone for the 'trust' model, as this one presented lesser hassles with respect to paperwork. I should also admit that I was one of the people who objected strongly to the idea of going for a 'trust' and instead voted for the 'society' model when the chapter was being formed. Although I'm no longer part of the chapter now, it is quite disturbing for me to see the efforts put into chapter being pulled to a certain possibility of being sidelined and undermined, if not fully forced to shut its office. Like Ray expressed in an earlier email, it starts to give an impression that somewhere we have lost our way. These two organizations would compete, create more confusion than that exists now. It would surely make people alienated. And above all - the community faces the risk of being dried out with tons of chemical fertilizers that are being thrown in powered by huge funds to pacify the growth. The rapidly spewed 'community' can vanish or evaporate with just the same pace. The land could get barren. More than the numbers, it will be the quality (which in turn retains the interest of people contributing to it) that would sustain the projects. And if we continue like this, there might be a time when nothing would grow even with the best of the funds thrown in. Cheers, On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 9:55 AM, Hisham hmun...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi Folks, I'm writing to share an update with you on certain developments of relevance to the Wikimedia movement in India. *Announcement of Wikimedia India Program Trust* For some time, efforts have gone into creating an organization that would provide an appropriate structure to support Wikimedia program activities in India. Aspects such as the current regulatory framework (regarding funding, taxation, etc.) as well as the legal protection for the India team have been considered to determine this structure. In this context, a host of options (e.g. subsidiary, branch, Section 25) were evaluated and a determination was made towards an independent non-profit public trust. Legal advice has been taken at every stage in this decision. A new entity, the “Wikimedia India Program Trust”, has now been formed and registered (in Delhi.) This will be the organization that will eventually drive India programs and house the team in India. *Why an Independent Public Trust?* The Trust will provide an effective vehicle within India to marshal resources to support programs and partner with local institutions. The objective of the Trust is to promote the objectives of the Wikimedia movement and work closely with the Wikimedia community on various projects with an India focus. It is important to understand that the Trust will not have any editorial control over
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia India Program Trust
Hisham, There has been much discussion on this already, but this does sound like some *serious* development to someone like me who has been a long time volunteer from India. And perhaps to several other long time contributors from here too, who seem to be staying away from adding their opinion here for a reason. Thinking back about the time years back when many of us were used to spending our personal earnings to organize small scale outreach programs here, things have surely changed now and much of the development in last couple of years has been, to say the least, *overwhelming*. India is now getting to see well funded conferences, the funds are now flowing in for new programs that seem to be keen in quickly 'inducing' a community that otherwise would have taken its own time growing in an organic way. While all this focus on India and the sudden inflow of funds is all quite amazing, this new development seems to indicate that the chapter, which has the potential to better represent the community doesn't get to be at the center stage anymore. When the Chapter was formed, a major decision involved choosing between the open, more democratic legal model of a 'society' and slightly locked-in model of a 'trust'. The Chapter chose the 'society' model which presented more democratic setup despite the paperwork, hassles and the delay it presented. Although Bishaka did mention on an earlier email about the trust, there was nothing much to indicate why specifically the India programs office needs to be registered as a trust. A serious concern in this context is that in a trust, the trustees needn't change. Although new trustees can be elected, the control remains with the initial set of trustees on board. The assets of the trust will be governed by this closed set of trustees who are not subject to elections or restricted to any fixed term unlike the model the chapter is built on. It is rather disturbing and surprising to see none of the volunteers from the community actually voicing their concerns about this. There sure was a huge discussion when the legal model of chapter was in question. I should note here that Wikimedia India Chapter could have started operating earlier than it did had we gone for the 'trust' model, as this one presented lesser hassles with respect to paperwork. I should also admit that I was one of the people who objected strongly to the idea of going for a 'trust' and instead voted for the 'society' model when the chapter was being formed. Although I'm no longer part of the chapter now, it is quite disturbing for me to see the efforts put into chapter being pulled to a certain possibility of being sidelined and undermined, if not fully forced to shut its office. Like Ray expressed in an earlier email, it starts to give an impression that somewhere we have lost our way. These two organizations would compete, create more confusion than that exists now. It would surely make people alienated. And above all - the community faces the risk of being dried out with tons of chemical fertilizers that are being thrown in powered by huge funds to pacify the growth. The rapidly spewed 'community' can vanish or evaporate with just the same pace. The land could get barren. More than the numbers, it will be the quality (which in turn retains the interest of people contributing to it) that would sustain the projects. And if we continue like this, there might be a time when nothing would grow even with the best of the funds thrown in. Cheers, On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 10:41 AM, Hisham hmun...@wikimedia.org wrote: cross-posting to foundation-l internal-l from India Community list; apologies if you've read this already. hisham Begin forwarded message: From: Hisham hmun...@wikimedia.org Subject: Wikimedia India Program Trust Date: November 11, 2011 9:55:00 AM GMT+05:30 To: Wikimedia India Community list wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Hi Folks, I'm writing to share an update with you on certain developments of relevance to the Wikimedia movement in India. Announcement of Wikimedia India Program Trust For some time, efforts have gone into creating an organization that would provide an appropriate structure to support Wikimedia program activities in India. Aspects such as the current regulatory framework (regarding funding, taxation, etc.) as well as the legal protection for the India team have been considered to determine this structure. In this context, a host of options (e.g. subsidiary, branch, Section 25) were evaluated and a determination was made towards an independent non-profit public trust. Legal advice has been taken at every stage in this decision. A new entity, the “Wikimedia India Program Trust”, has now been formed and registered (in Delhi.) This will be the organization that will eventually drive India programs and house the team in India. Why an Independent Public Trust? The Trust will provide an effective vehicle within India to
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 13:08, Ram Shankar Yadav ramshankarya...@gmail.comwrote: *This is exactly the kind of cluelessness i am referring to. The [[WP:COMPETENCE]] exists exactly for this purpose - we dont want kids, who will mess up by drawing mangoes and bananas here. We want atleast semi competent, interested people who can act responsibly.* * * *- *First of all stop playing those policy games, before looking at [[WP:COMPETENCE]] I would rather say to have a look at [[WP:DONTBITE]]. BITE is suppressing one on the wiki when someone is trying to contribute. Here he is citing the policy for an analysis of a project not mentioning any one in particular, certainly this is NOT BITING. *But then, i should expect this general cluelessness and ignorance from a campus ambassador with a grand total of 41 mainspace edits?. * * * - Dude you are getting personal here, I respect you obsession with numbers but the whole idea of a campus ambassador is to help others to edit, instead of writing articles for edit count. You just took one number and creating all the fuss but you ignored others like ... Total Edits :705 (in last 5 months) Article49 7.09% Talk 6 0.87% *User 185 26.77%* *User talk 238 34.44%* *Wikipedia 144 20.84%* Wikipedia talk 26 3.76% Template 37 5.35% Help 6 0.87% For more stats : http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/pcount/index.php?name=Ramshankaryadavlang=enwiki=wikipedia He brought up numbers since you called him misfit (trolls happen only when people feed from both sides). One must consider the fact that he was a OA in PPP (Remember OA for PPP was selected after following careful process) and unlike IEP (where people are blaming the selection of OA as well [1]). While I greatly appreciate what you and other CA's did doing physical outreach and reaching out to students, but you could have 1000x better if you had better edit count. They are not mere stats which people boast, they are experience. Being an ambassador is about helping out yes, but not just motivating, helping on wiki syntax. The experience allows to share better insight on policies, rules of the game. I am not particularly blaming you, probably design of IEP (or even PPP if PPP also followed the same model of immature CA). I , along with several editors(Even Ashwin raised the same point on the thread) had a problem with this too and is still not being acknowledged even after the results. All we are asking CA's is to Practice before you preach. Is that wrong? In my view scale and quality of students were a bigger problems and got multiplied, but that doesn't mean everything else was right in place. We will learn only if we acknowledge all the proper reasons. There is no need of finger pointing, we need to learn the lessons and the first step would be to acknowledge. Apart from the numbers we got the experience of personally touching 1000+ students and interacting with Faculty and Directors, which you can not do by siting and editing Wikipedia in your living room. I'm not a 14000+ editor like you but I share the same philosophy of free knowledge, but instead of respecting us you are doing all the mud throwing, it's not acceptable at all!! I had already given the credit you guys deserved above, You dont know what he has done beyond the 14000+ edits, so please refrain from commenting on others ability to do things without knowing what they have done. I particularly find it sad when people run over and mail when there are percieved personal attacks on newbies but many keep quiet when senior members are told misfit, 'questioning siting and editing Wikipedia in your living room ' [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Education_Program#Online_Ambassadors_to_be_checked -- Regards Srikanth.L ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot
Hey all, Let me introduce myself first. I too am a CA in fact a second gen one. I initially decided not to reply to this mail stream at all as there is nothing but a blame game going on. But after all the personal attacks, I've decided to be on the front-line along with my CA family. Ok, firstly, I don't really get this issue of the Indian Community not being aware. I mean, yes, you can blame Hisham for not enrolling the community but as the copyvios started flooding and the students started editing, we hardly saw anyone from the Indian Community. Even the Global community was unaware, but they sought out the information and made their presence felt such that they demanded information. The Indian community however, still expects that students will come to them for help and they shall help. I remember attending the meeting last month. I was very excited as I was new to Wikipedia India community, Pune chapter. But am sorry to say, saying that the meeting was fruitful would be nothing but a vast exaggeration. I mean, we explained to the community as to how we and our Indian culture and education system were suffering personal attacks and we really needed assistance in replying back to them, but all the community was interested in was going to the students why they should not do copyvio which, we had already given tons of sessions for. In fact, the mere suggestion of Ram to create custom welcome templates for the students was only agreed upon in theory and never came to life. Unfortunately, attacking the CA's on their edit count is a way, in which you can belittle their efforts, blame it on everyone else and just show how right you are. The very aspect as to how this whole discussion is turning into only a blame game shows the fragmentation of the Indian community to which I feel to be a part of also. As for OA's, I'm sorry but I can speak for myself to state I received zero help from my assigned OA's. I tried a lot on my part to reach out and get help but I had to man 100+ students * 2 subjects all on my own as my fellow CA also left my side. The active CA's were a big support, like Ram and a few others. What is not visible in Wikipedia is the amount of hard work we CA's put in physically. I spent time every day teaching 100 students individually how to create a sandbox, my edit count does not show that contribution, I am sorry to say. I spent day and night searching for copyvios. Its only because of us CA's that the extent of copyvios was scaled to a lesser extent before the emergency OA's came in. As for that Brazilian CA, he has been there since 2007, so I don't really get how you can compare him to Ram. The funniest thing however that I find is the name of the email chain, death and post mortem?? I mean, firstly, the IEP is not dead. Being the CA of SSE, I can say for certain, it was successfully implemented in SSE. I'd say at least 20 students are now permanent Wikipedians who might have done copyvio, but rectified and came back strong. I hate this blame game of Nitika and Hisham as well as the other CA's. I am sorry to say, I had no help from the Indian community. All that I know about detecting copyvio was taught to me by Kudpung and Moonriddengirl, the rest I learnt along the way. Kudpung too was not expected to teach me, but he still did, and that is what I call as the true spirit of a Wikipedian, imparting knowledge. Having a huge number of edits may make you well known to the community at large but for a bunch of students who have just started and don't even know how to check an edit count, its useless knowledge to them. They will hardly reach out to OA's. Most of the queries I got were not on my talk page but via phone calls and in person chat. I carried my laptop around showing anyone and everyone who wanted to know what to do. We accept the mistakes we made but this blame game has to stop. What is the point of it all?? Form a constructive platform in moving forward not step back and say, I told you so. That's just childish and immature. As for the rampant voices who judge our experience, I welcome you to come to the colleges, deal with over 1000+ students and see how your words can totally inspire them to create non-copyright articles. Please, it will be a learning experience for me. Ask Srikeit, I invited him once, only about 16 people attended. The rest 80+ in SSE, asked me face to face at a later time. Would any of you be willing to spend so much time answering their queries from 9am to 2am?? I'd love to get that kind of support and give the students a few of your numbers. Calculate that into my edit count please and am sure, I won't fair that badly. -- Regards, Debanjan* user:debastein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Debastein - Lets make this world a better and more informative place* On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 9:59 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik@gmail.comwrote: On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 13:08, Ram Shankar Yadav ramshankarya...@gmail.com wrote: *This is exactly the
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot
+1 Debanjan! On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 11:11 PM, Debanjan Bandyopadhyay debast...@gmail.com wrote: Hey all, Let me introduce myself first. I too am a CA in fact a second gen one. I initially decided not to reply to this mail stream at all as there is nothing but a blame game going on. But after all the personal attacks, I've decided to be on the front-line along with my CA family. Ok, firstly, I don't really get this issue of the Indian Community not being aware. I mean, yes, you can blame Hisham for not enrolling the community but as the copyvios started flooding and the students started editing, we hardly saw anyone from the Indian Community. Even the Global community was unaware, but they sought out the information and made their presence felt such that they demanded information. The Indian community however, still expects that students will come to them for help and they shall help. I remember attending the meeting last month. I was very excited as I was new to Wikipedia India community, Pune chapter. But am sorry to say, saying that the meeting was fruitful would be nothing but a vast exaggeration. I mean, we explained to the community as to how we and our Indian culture and education system were suffering personal attacks and we really needed assistance in replying back to them, but all the community was interested in was going to the students why they should not do copyvio which, we had already given tons of sessions for. In fact, the mere suggestion of Ram to create custom welcome templates for the students was only agreed upon in theory and never came to life. Unfortunately, attacking the CA's on their edit count is a way, in which you can belittle their efforts, blame it on everyone else and just show how right you are. The very aspect as to how this whole discussion is turning into only a blame game shows the fragmentation of the Indian community to which I feel to be a part of also. As for OA's, I'm sorry but I can speak for myself to state I received zero help from my assigned OA's. I tried a lot on my part to reach out and get help but I had to man 100+ students * 2 subjects all on my own as my fellow CA also left my side. The active CA's were a big support, like Ram and a few others. What is not visible in Wikipedia is the amount of hard work we CA's put in physically. I spent time every day teaching 100 students individually how to create a sandbox, my edit count does not show that contribution, I am sorry to say. I spent day and night searching for copyvios. Its only because of us CA's that the extent of copyvios was scaled to a lesser extent before the emergency OA's came in. As for that Brazilian CA, he has been there since 2007, so I don't really get how you can compare him to Ram. The funniest thing however that I find is the name of the email chain, death and post mortem?? I mean, firstly, the IEP is not dead. Being the CA of SSE, I can say for certain, it was successfully implemented in SSE. I'd say at least 20 students are now permanent Wikipedians who might have done copyvio, but rectified and came back strong. I hate this blame game of Nitika and Hisham as well as the other CA's. I am sorry to say, I had no help from the Indian community. All that I know about detecting copyvio was taught to me by Kudpung and Moonriddengirl, the rest I learnt along the way. Kudpung too was not expected to teach me, but he still did, and that is what I call as the true spirit of a Wikipedian, imparting knowledge. Having a huge number of edits may make you well known to the community at large but for a bunch of students who have just started and don't even know how to check an edit count, its useless knowledge to them. They will hardly reach out to OA's. Most of the queries I got were not on my talk page but via phone calls and in person chat. I carried my laptop around showing anyone and everyone who wanted to know what to do. We accept the mistakes we made but this blame game has to stop. What is the point of it all?? Form a constructive platform in moving forward not step back and say, I told you so. That's just childish and immature. As for the rampant voices who judge our experience, I welcome you to come to the colleges, deal with over 1000+ students and see how your words can totally inspire them to create non-copyright articles. Please, it will be a learning experience for me. Ask Srikeit, I invited him once, only about 16 people attended. The rest 80+ in SSE, asked me face to face at a later time. Would any of you be willing to spend so much time answering their queries from 9am to 2am?? I'd love to get that kind of support and give the students a few of your numbers. Calculate that into my edit count please and am sure, I won't fair that badly. -- Regards, Debanjan* user:debastein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Debastein - Lets make this world a better and more informative place* On Tue, Nov
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 23:11, Debanjan Bandyopadhyay debast...@gmail.comwrote: The Indian community however, still expects that students will come to them for help and they shall help. I never got an answer for the question Does your college profs come to your home and help you in doing the assignments?. I wont blame any single person, to stereotype this is exactly Indian students' mentality and this is a very big problem. It is very difficult to do anything at all even if we have 1000 global admins willing to sign up as ambassadors. -- Regards Srikanth.L ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot
Hey Srikanth, This is exactly what I meant about constructive approach. No my profs don't come to me house. They fail me. I understand that this is a problem in the mentality of Indian students. But you either have two options, decide to help anyway or crib about how the mentality of students need to change. Now let me ask you a question. When someone falls in a river, do you wait for that person to ask you for your help or do you try to save him anyway. I might be immature in my views, but when you have a whole bunch of new Wikipedian's who would prefer to contact their CA's on facebook and not on Wikipedia talk page, do you refuse to give them help or go to their talk pages and help them out. I say, everyone has their choices, I'd jump in the river to save the person, you may want to sit and wait till he calls for your help. There are no good or bad choices, its just a choice and its up to you as to what you believe in. May I also point the rhetoric of your statement, my prof doesn't come to my house, I go to him, because I am afraid of him failing me? So do you want the students to reach the OA's out of fear? In my experience, when I went and helped out a person, even when they didn't want my help, it turned out that I became more easily approachable and they came to me later with more issues. I'd say, this is India, our problems are unique and hence so should be our solutions. Cribbing will get us nowhere. I can say for sure, if you go to 100 students and check out their contribs, at least 20 will reply back and thank you and ask for your help the next time. But if you sit and wait for them to come to you, I don't imagine even 5 will come to you. My views, not necessary that you may agree. Do assume good faith while reading my email, I meant it in no other way. -- Regards, Debanjan* - Lets make this world a better and more informative place* On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 12:15 AM, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik@gmail.comwrote: On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 23:11, Debanjan Bandyopadhyay debast...@gmail.com wrote: The Indian community however, still expects that students will come to them for help and they shall help. I never got an answer for the question Does your college profs come to your home and help you in doing the assignments?. I wont blame any single person, to stereotype this is exactly Indian students' mentality and this is a very big problem. It is very difficult to do anything at all even if we have 1000 global admins willing to sign up as ambassadors. -- Regards Srikanth.L ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Topics for my talk @wikiconference India
Thanks for the ideas for the talk folks. I'll try my best to cover the topics you suggest and hope we can have a good discussion throughout the three day conference. Thanks for the warm welcome. As always, I'm excited to be visiting...and seeing you all. Best, Barry On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 7:30 PM, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.com wrote: Barry, In last Wikimania, Jimmy Wales gave a Global Wikipedian of the year award for the phenomenal work done in Khazak Wiki. http://en.tengrinews.kz/internet/3813/ But, we couldn't learn in detail about their work. Similarly, there will be many growing global Wikipedia communities that face challenges and yet do a great work. From your experiences as a Global development officer, it will be useful for us to learn how they do it. So, in essence, I would like your talk to be about growing globall communities. Not about Indian Wiki communities :) Ravi On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 11:37 PM, Barry Newstead bnewst...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi all, I'm really looking forward to Wikiconference India next week and congrats in advance to the organizers, who have put countless hours into the work of preparing this unprecedented gathering in India. The program committee invited me to do a talk on Sunday which is a great honor, thank you! I'd like to ask for your input on areas you would like me to focus on in my talk. I will have time set aside for discussion, but want to see if you have any particular interest areas that you'd like me to focus on. Thanks and see you on Friday! Barry ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l -- Barry Newstead Chief Global Development Officer Wikimedia Foundation Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot
Srikanth With all respect, let me ask, what are we trying to do here. To change the so called Indian Students mentality or trying to spur the growth of Wikipedia in India? This is getting too personal and creating a wedge between one of the most well known knowledge communities in the world. Please please please, let us put a stop to this. This conversation/thread has to STOP at any cost. This is not doing any good than getting things personal. I hope better sense prevail. Abhi On 16-Nov-2011 12:15 AM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote: On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 23:11, Debanjan Bandyopadhyay debast...@gmail.com mailto:debast...@gmail.com wrote: The Indian community however, still expects that students will come to them for help and they shall help. I never got an answer for the question Does your college profs come to your home and help you in doing the assignments?. I wont blame any single person, to stereotype this is exactly Indian students' mentality and this is a very big problem. It is very difficult to do anything at all even if we have 1000 global admins willing to sign up as ambassadors. -- Regards Srikanth.L ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot
+1 Abhilash On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Abhilash abhilashu...@gmail.com wrote: Srikanth With all respect, let me ask, what are we trying to do here. To change the so called Indian Students mentality or trying to spur the growth of Wikipedia in India? This is getting too personal and creating a wedge between one of the most well known knowledge communities in the world. Please please please, let us put a stop to this. This conversation/thread has to STOP at any cost. This is not doing any good than getting things personal. I hope better sense prevail. Abhi On 16-Nov-2011 12:15 AM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote: On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 23:11, Debanjan Bandyopadhyay debast...@gmail.com wrote: The Indian community however, still expects that students will come to them for help and they shall help. I never got an answer for the question Does your college profs come to your home and help you in doing the assignments?. I wont blame any single person, to stereotype this is exactly Indian students' mentality and this is a very big problem. It is very difficult to do anything at all even if we have 1000 global admins willing to sign up as ambassadors. -- Regards Srikanth.L ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing listwikimediaindi...@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l -- Regards, Debanjan* - Lets make this world a better and more informative place* ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
