Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [WMIN-Members] Re: Wikimedia India Chapter: FDC Proposal Review Request
Thank you, Ravi and Tamil Wikipedians for all the suggestions/feedback. Will continue engaging with you on this. Request communities that haven't connected with us to do so at the earliest. On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.comwrote: Karthik, Except for allocation for Innovative projects, GLAM acdtivities and Digitisation (Budget items 3.5.1, 3.5.4, 3.5.5), I don't see any other budget item that directly sustains any measurable impact on the growth of language communities. Even this fund allocation will prove miniscule when distributed for all the language communities. I strongly recommend to extend the budget proposal to make use of the full $200,000 that you proposed in your letter of intent and allocate a good budget for language communities and special interest groups. Please also see my feedback at http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:FDC_Proposal_2013/Budget#Funding_allocation_for_language_communities_and_SIGs Thanks, Ravi -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups wmin-members group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to wmin-members+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Kind Regards, Pranav Curumsey ___ 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] Wikimedia India Chapter: FDC Proposal Review Request
There is a very serious amount of money being spent on bureaucratic necessities indeed very little on community activities. For example, why do 6 people need to go for Wikimania Chapters conference? You have asked for money for 3 regional 1 national conference. Does anyone actually believe that the Chapter has the wherewithal to organise/conduct 4 conferences in a year? Add to that x number of academies one devcamp. Plus a whopping Rs 6 lakhs for Wiki Loves India/Monuments. There are also a huge grey areas - Event Participation, Unspecified general events. The amt 150,000 $ is not at all small. This is an extravagant budget and needs pruning down in the issues mentioned above more allocation to activities communities. My suggestion is to keep it much smaller but doable. Such huge amts demanded without any clear cut idea of whats to happen will only lead to non-utilisation at best misuse at worst. Dont bite off more than you can chew! On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.com wrote: Karthik, Except for allocation for Innovative projects, GLAM acdtivities and Digitisation (Budget items 3.5.1, 3.5.4, 3.5.5), I don't see any other budget item that directly sustains any measurable impact on the growth of language communities. Even this fund allocation will prove miniscule when distributed for all the language communities. I strongly recommend to extend the budget proposal to make use of the full $200,000 that you proposed in your letter of intent and allocate a good budget for language communities and special interest groups. Please also see my feedback at http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:FDC_Proposal_2013/Budget#Funding_allocation_for_language_communities_and_SIGs Thanks, 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 -- Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- ___ 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] Wikimedia India Chapter: FDC Proposal Review Request
Hi All, I sense the budget is little beyond the line. I understand the tentative events planned will mean an aggressive growth plan, but do we have the resources to handle it? More so, can someone explain the status of our FCRA and how exactly is the fund routed into our account? An amount of this magnitude will need a reflection of our previous spend/ failing which we will attract unnecessary scrutiny. This will mean we will need to have full-time support staff - additional expense. For Wikimania, I support and wish to see a transparent call for interests and a due process for selection of travel/scholarship awards: more Indian representation at Wikimania is worthy and called for. For a national conference/4 regional conferences - I understand it will be an overstretch, it is best to have a single conference, through rotation in different cities every year to ensure good participation in the long run. Most of the attendees are volunteers, 5 conferences in total is a bit heavy on schedule. - Abhijith Jayanthi From: Ashwin Baindur ashwin.bain...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia India Community list wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia Members List wmin-memb...@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, 24 September 2013 1:00 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia India Chapter: FDC Proposal Review Request There is a very serious amount of money being spent on bureaucratic necessities indeed very little on community activities. For example, why do 6 people need to go for Wikimania Chapters conference? You have asked for money for 3 regional 1 national conference. Does anyone actually believe that the Chapter has the wherewithal to organise/conduct 4 conferences in a year? Add to that x number of academies one devcamp. Plus a whopping Rs 6 lakhs for Wiki Loves India/Monuments. There are also a huge grey areas - Event Participation, Unspecified general events. The amt 150,000 $ is not at all small. This is an extravagant budget and needs pruning down in the issues mentioned above more allocation to activities communities. My suggestion is to keep it much smaller but doable. Such huge amts demanded without any clear cut idea of whats to happen will only lead to non-utilisation at best misuse at worst. Dont bite off more than you can chew! On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.com wrote: Karthik, Except for allocation for Innovative projects, GLAM acdtivities and Digitisation (Budget items 3.5.1, 3.5.4, 3.5.5), I don't see any other budget item that directly sustains any measurable impact on the growth of language communities. Even this fund allocation will prove miniscule when distributed for all the language communities. I strongly recommend to extend the budget proposal to make use of the full $200,000 that you proposed in your letter of intent and allocate a good budget for language communities and special interest groups. Please also see my feedback at http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:FDC_Proposal_2013/Budget#Funding_allocation_for_language_communities_and_SIGs Thanks, 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 -- Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- ___ 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
[Wikimediaindia-l] Re-releasing Konkani Vishwakosh under CC-BY-SA 3.0 (Event Invitation)
Greetings from CIS-A2K! We request the pleasure of your company at the event 'Re-releasing Konkani Vishwakosh Building Konkani Wikipedia' . The event will take place on the 26th September, Thursday,10am - 11am at the Conference Hall, Goa University, Taleigao. Upon CIS-A2K' explicit request, Goa University has approved the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License (CC‐BY‐SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public and thus preserve Konkani language and culture in the digital era. This encyclopedia will also serve as one of the main sources of building and writing articles on Konkani Wikipedia (which is currently under incubation). We'd like you to be a part of this event and help showcase Konkani community and language on a global digital platform such as Konkani Wikipedia. Please see the link for the invite.[1] We look forward to seeing you at the event. Best, Vishnu [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Re-release_of_Konkani_Vishwakosh_under_Creative_Commons_License_CC-BY-SA_3.0_-_Invite.pdf ___ 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] Press release: Tamil Wikipedia 10 years celebrations
Hi, Need everyone's help with media coordination for our 10 years celebrations. We are organizing a press meet at 4 PM tomorrow (September 25, wednesday) at Chennai Press club, Government Estate, Behind State Guest House Near Chepauk Cricket Stadium, Mount Road, Chennai - 62 Coud you please pass this info to journalists you know? For those who cannot attend, here is our press release in English and Tamil: https://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:10pr Thanks, 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
[Wikimediaindia-l] [Press] : NextBigWhat.com : Piecing Together India’s Heritage One Photo at A Time [Indians Top Contributors to World's Largest Photo Contest]
*NextBigWhat.com : Piecing Together India’s Heritage One Photo at A Time [Indians Top Contributors to World's Largest Photo Contest]* http://www.nextbigwhat.com/india-heritage-photo-wiki-loves-monuments-297/ With his point and shoot camera, *Anupam Ganguly* has been keeping busy for the last few weeks. Unlike how most professionals in Gurgaon spend their weekends, Ganguly has been frequenting architectural monuments and places of historical significance with missionary zeal. Taj Mahal Taj Mahal by Anupam Ganguly “I used to take photographs before too, but this month, I’ve been going every weekend,” says Ganguly. It is that time of the year, when hundreds of enthusiasts like him scour the country for pictures to upload to Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), a photo contest run by Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia. With the help of these volunteers, India is now one of the top 10 contributing countries across the world to the contest. More than 900 contributors from India have uploaded nearly 6000 photographs to the site, making it one of the highest contributing countries. “I was not aware of the Mehrauli Archaeological Park in Delhi until I went through WLM, and on my visit I ended spending a whole day there,” says Ganguly, who is now one of the highest contributing Indian on the site. A business analyst by professions, Ganguly works for an MNC in the National Capital Region. In 2012 he submitted 794 photographs and became the highest contributor in India and 55th in the world. This year, India is leading the in the number of contributors by a huge margin with 905 contributors so far*. Russia comes in at the second position with only 458 contributing users. Wiki Loves Monuments is an annual international photography competition organized by Wikimedia, held in September every year. In 2011 The Guinness Book of World Records named it the world’s largest photographic competition. WLM 2013 Participating Countries WLM 2013 Participating Countries Participating Wikipedians take pictures of historical monuments and heritage sites in their region, and upload them to Wikimedia Commons, which is an online repository of free-use images, sound, and other media files. The contest usually runs from 1 September to 30 September, and participants should upload photographs during this period to take part in the competition. Last year, *Pranav Singh* from Delhi won the first prize in the international contest and *Narender Kumar *from Delhi, came in 6th. Tomb of Safdarjung By Pranav Singh Won WLM 2012 Tomb of Safdarjung By Pranav Singh Won WLM 2012 The interesting bit is that not all contributors are interested in the prize. According to a survey conducted by Wikimedia, “75% of the people said that they participated only because they wanted to contribute to Wikipedia and not to win anything.” *History of Wiki Loves Monuments* The first WLM was held in Netherlands back in 2010 for “Rijksmonuments”, which means national monuments in Dutch, was started as a project to encourage photographers to seek out Dutch National Heritage Sites. During its first event WLM participants submitted 12,500 photographs. The following year WLM grew to 18 participating countries in Europe in a collaboration with European Heritage Days. This time more than 5000 participants submitted 170,000 photographs making it the largest photo competition in the world. In 2012, the competition went global with 35 participating countries beyond Europe and saw submissions of nearly 350,000 photographs. A picture of Tomb of Safdarjung from Delhi, India, won the contest. *How Wiki Loves Monuments Works* National and regional heritage institutions provide official data regarding monuments, heritage and archeological sites. Each monument is assigned a unique identifier and these can be attached to the photographs at the time of upload using “Wikipedia templates”. Using Wikipedia templates also allows easy Wiki-editing. A program called erfgoedbot (‘erfgoed’ in Dutch means heritage) collates and sorts all the images and identifiers, organising them into correct categories, and updates the Wikimedia Commons database. The database then connects the photographs with the monuments list in Wikipedia using the monuments ID accordingly. Read more about WLM India here, and about the 2013 WLM contest here. *At the time of writing. Regards Tinu Cherian pr...@wikimedia.in Important Note : Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes only. The publisher ( NextBigWhat ) of the above news article owns the copyrights of the article / content. All copyrights are duly acknowledged. ___ 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] [Press] : NextBigWhat.com : Piecing Together India’s Heritage One Photo at A Time [Indians Top Contributors to World's Largest Photo Contest]
Very nice. Thanks. It really puts WLM in a good perspective. On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 5:57 PM, CherianTinu Abraham tinucher...@gmail.comwrote: *NextBigWhat.com : Piecing Together India’s Heritage One Photo at A Time [Indians Top Contributors to World's Largest Photo Contest]* http://www.nextbigwhat.com/india-heritage-photo-wiki-loves-monuments-297/ With his point and shoot camera, *Anupam Ganguly* has been keeping busy for the last few weeks. Unlike how most professionals in Gurgaon spend their weekends, Ganguly has been frequenting architectural monuments and places of historical significance with missionary zeal. Taj Mahal Taj Mahal by Anupam Ganguly “I used to take photographs before too, but this month, I’ve been going every weekend,” says Ganguly. It is that time of the year, when hundreds of enthusiasts like him scour the country for pictures to upload to Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), a photo contest run by Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia. With the help of these volunteers, India is now one of the top 10 contributing countries across the world to the contest. More than 900 contributors from India have uploaded nearly 6000 photographs to the site, making it one of the highest contributing countries. “I was not aware of the Mehrauli Archaeological Park in Delhi until I went through WLM, and on my visit I ended spending a whole day there,” says Ganguly, who is now one of the highest contributing Indian on the site. A business analyst by professions, Ganguly works for an MNC in the National Capital Region. In 2012 he submitted 794 photographs and became the highest contributor in India and 55th in the world. This year, India is leading the in the number of contributors by a huge margin with 905 contributors so far*. Russia comes in at the second position with only 458 contributing users. Wiki Loves Monuments is an annual international photography competition organized by Wikimedia, held in September every year. In 2011 The Guinness Book of World Records named it the world’s largest photographic competition. WLM 2013 Participating Countries WLM 2013 Participating Countries Participating Wikipedians take pictures of historical monuments and heritage sites in their region, and upload them to Wikimedia Commons, which is an online repository of free-use images, sound, and other media files. The contest usually runs from 1 September to 30 September, and participants should upload photographs during this period to take part in the competition. Last year, *Pranav Singh* from Delhi won the first prize in the international contest and *Narender Kumar *from Delhi, came in 6th. Tomb of Safdarjung By Pranav Singh Won WLM 2012 Tomb of Safdarjung By Pranav Singh Won WLM 2012 The interesting bit is that not all contributors are interested in the prize. According to a survey conducted by Wikimedia, “75% of the people said that they participated only because they wanted to contribute to Wikipedia and not to win anything.” *History of Wiki Loves Monuments* The first WLM was held in Netherlands back in 2010 for “Rijksmonuments”, which means national monuments in Dutch, was started as a project to encourage photographers to seek out Dutch National Heritage Sites. During its first event WLM participants submitted 12,500 photographs. The following year WLM grew to 18 participating countries in Europe in a collaboration with European Heritage Days. This time more than 5000 participants submitted 170,000 photographs making it the largest photo competition in the world. In 2012, the competition went global with 35 participating countries beyond Europe and saw submissions of nearly 350,000 photographs. A picture of Tomb of Safdarjung from Delhi, India, won the contest. *How Wiki Loves Monuments Works* National and regional heritage institutions provide official data regarding monuments, heritage and archeological sites. Each monument is assigned a unique identifier and these can be attached to the photographs at the time of upload using “Wikipedia templates”. Using Wikipedia templates also allows easy Wiki-editing. A program called erfgoedbot (‘erfgoed’ in Dutch means heritage) collates and sorts all the images and identifiers, organising them into correct categories, and updates the Wikimedia Commons database. The database then connects the photographs with the monuments list in Wikipedia using the monuments ID accordingly. Read more about WLM India here, and about the 2013 WLM contest here. *At the time of writing. Regards Tinu Cherian pr...@wikimedia.in Important Note : Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes only. The publisher ( NextBigWhat ) of the above news article owns the copyrights of the article / content. All copyrights are duly acknowledged. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia India Chapter: FDC Proposal Review Request
I am responding here this once, from now ahead please post your comments on the chapter wiki so we dont spam peoples inboxes. Abhijith, I think I answer most of your points here. The one about FCRA, we have prior permission upto $100k. Next Jan we complete 3 years and we can apply for a prior permission waiver. This has been taken into consideration. On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 1:00 PM, Ashwin Baindur ashwin.bain...@gmail.comwrote: There is a very serious amount of money being spent on bureaucratic necessities indeed very little on community activities. About 70% of the annual plan roughly is programmatic activities. This is in line with good NGO standards where admin activities are kept under 1/3rd of the cost. For example, why do 6 people need to go for Wikimania Chapters conference? Earlier years 2 board members have been attending chapcon which WMF funded. We are adding the chief employee as this is an excellent opportunity to interact with the larger movement, learn from others and collaborate. I think almost all chapters having employees do this. Same with Wikimania. We need to remember we are a global movement and this interaction is extremely important. Even A2K sent 2 employees to Wikimania last month. Its only because we cannot ask for any separate program funding that its now included here. You have asked for money for 3 regional 1 national conference. Does anyone actually believe that the Chapter has the wherewithal to organise/conduct 4 conferences in a year? Add to that x number of academies one devcamp. Plus a whopping Rs 6 lakhs for Wiki Loves India/Monuments. This year there have been two conferences - Telugu and Tamil. We planned for 3 keeping in mind next year Bangla Wikipedia completes 10 years, the Gender Gap SIG put up some request and Im sure atleast one other community will have a regional event - that makes 3. Next year will be 3 years since the last national event, we feel it is time for another national event, maybe not as large as the last one but large enough to be a catalyst for the movements next step forward in India. 12 academies which cost money (apart from those to which there is no cost) - we did 15 academies last year, you still think its too much? Devcamp - our commitment to do a tech related event, some members have been requesting this. We will have 3 employees who will support all this. There are also a huge grey areas - Event Participation, Unspecified general events. Event participation is for external events, more of networking and building chapter profile, making people aware we are around. Last year we participated in a FICCI event as well as The Fifth Elephant. I'm sure your well aware we cannot plan for everything so we need a general budget for events which spring up in different parts of our diverse country. The amt 150,000 $ is not at all small. This is an extravagant budget and needs pruning down in the issues mentioned above more allocation to activities communities. My suggestion is to keep it much smaller but doable. Such huge amts demanded without any clear cut idea of whats to happen will only lead to non-utilisation at best misuse at worst. Dont bite off more than you can chew! I respectfully disagree. Unlike most other chapters, WMIN caters to 40+ language communities, including incubators. Have a look at suggestions from various communities, people are raring to go. We will do all we can to support them. We have carefully considered the figure so as to make sure we are not growing too fast. In the last two years we have received WMF grants of aprox $80,000 in total apart from local funding. No doubt this is a big leap, however we need to take this big leap in order to set up our own office, become more professional and live up to community expectations. The office is not being added just for adding admin expenses but so that the community benefits by its support. On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.comwrote: Karthik, Except for allocation for Innovative projects, GLAM acdtivities and Digitisation (Budget items 3.5.1, 3.5.4, 3.5.5), I don't see any other budget item that directly sustains any measurable impact on the growth of language communities. Even this fund allocation will prove miniscule when distributed for all the language communities. I strongly recommend to extend the budget proposal to make use of the full $200,000 that you proposed in your letter of intent and allocate a good budget for language communities and special interest groups. Please also see my feedback at http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:FDC_Proposal_2013/Budget#Funding_allocation_for_language_communities_and_SIGs Thanks, 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 -- Warm
[Wikimediaindia-l] Sept 26, Re-releasing the Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopedia) and building the Konkani Wikipedia.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Re-release_of_Konkani_Vishwakosh_under_Creative_Commons_License_CC-BY-SA_3.0_-_Invite.pdf Re-releasing the Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopedia) and building the Konkani Wikipedia. On Sept 26, 2013, Thursday, at 10 am. Conference Hall, Goa University, Taleigao An initiative by the Goa University in collaboration with The Centre for Internet and Society Access to Knowledge. Please consider this as a personal invitation. Come join hands in the campaign to promote free accesst o knowledge in one’s mother tongue – Konkani. This is an initiative taken by the Goa University towards sharing and preserving knowledge in the Konkani language. Goa University has generously approved the re-release of the Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopedia) under the Creative Comons License (CC-BY-SA-3.0) to make it freely available to the public and thus preserve the Konkani language and culture in the digital era. This encyclopedia will also serve as the main source of building and writing articles on the Konkani Wikipedia. This is a major step towards showcasing the Konkani community and language on a global platform such as the Konkani Wikipedia. NOTE FROM FN: The above is an invite which Nitika Tandon requested to share. In view of the concerns that other scripts (Roman, Kannada among others) should not be excluded from this project, I have suggested that copyright-expired dictionaries in those scripts, for a start, could likewise be digitized, shared and updated as some parallel project. Please send in your views and comments on this issue to Nitika Tandon nit...@cis-india.org, Sunil Abraham su...@cis-india.org, Hariett Vidyasagar outofin...@gmail.com and vis...@cis-india.org -- FN Land +91-832-240-9490 Cell +91-982-212-2436 f...@goa-india.org ___ 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] Few concerns
hi, this is with reference to this email - http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-September/010415.html, sent by Zakaas Zakaas. the text of the email was scrubbed as HTML. The content of the text is here - http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/attachments/20130915/a6cebef4/attachment.html reproduced below: While the new ECs are still deciding the new office bearers, there are some observations which are of serious concern. It is known fact that Karthik(secratory) is employee of Moksha(president) and Pranav is employee/consultant to Moksha/pIn the true spirit of wikipedia, where transparancy is atmost important, and conflict of interests are taken seriously, have thesebr /people given any disclaimer about this information (employee, employer relationship) in advancIt will be nice to know the concern people stand regarding this matter. It is interesting to note that while the author asks for transparency, he is not transparent himself. Let us assume that the alias is taken for the sake of revealing this truth. Unfortunately, just using the alias is insufficient, in my opinion. One must also be able to mask one's partiality to the language one uses for the mask to be complete. In this case, I can easily identify the author as Viswaprabha. He's the only person I know of who calls Moksh Moksha. Pradeep Mohandas How Pradeep uses email? - http://goo.gl/6v1I9___ 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] Few concerns
Did I read and understand that absolutely correctly! If so, this is a huge accusal! Please come to your senses before doing such horrendous accusations! I would never (or am or will be planning) to send any mail messages to ANY public (or private) lists other than from my own proven identities!!! TAKE IT FOR GRANTED! Indeed, your baseless and mean assumption calls for severe actions! -Viswam User:Viswaprabha On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 8:37 AM, Pradeep Mohandas prad2...@yahoo.comwrote: hi, this is with reference to this email - http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-September/010415.html, sent by Zakaas Zakaas. the text of the email was scrubbed as HTML. The content of the text is here - http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/attachments/20130915/a6cebef4/attachment.html reproduced below: While the new ECs are still deciding the new office bearers, there are some observations which are of serious concern. It is known fact that Karthik(secratory) is employee of Moksha(president) and Pranav is employee/consultant to Moksha/p In the true spirit of wikipedia, where transparancy is atmost important, and conflict of interests are taken seriously, have thesebr /people given any disclaimer about this information (employee, employer relationship) in advancIt will be nice to know the concern people stand regarding this matter. It is interesting to note that while the author asks for transparency, he is not transparent himself. Let us assume that the alias is taken for the sake of revealing this truth. Unfortunately, just using the alias is insufficient, in my opinion. One must also be able to mask one's partiality to the language one uses for the mask to be complete. In this case, I can easily identify the author as Viswaprabha. He's the only person I know of who calls Moksh Moksha. Pradeep Mohandas How Pradeep uses email? - http://goo.gl/6v1I9 ___ 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] Few concerns
Apologies for the rant that follows and can be conveniently skipped by the busy folks here. I am quite intrigued by the kinds of discussion on this list and indeed intrigued by most of the characters that seem to be involved in the Wikimedia movement in India and how it stands out in contrast to the spirit of Wikipedia and its sister projects. Whereas the project is more a culture of giving, most of what we see here seems to be more about merely getting things for oneself and getting ahead of each other which I suppose is inspiration drawn from street traffic. Having observed the movement from the outside, it is my hope that the best values of Wikipedia culture are imbibed rather than the worst of Indian culture. * Wikiculture - Deal with issues not the persons raising them - what matters more than who. Those who actually interact with the *community* (an earlier thread gave the suggestion that people would get an opportunity to interact with the *community* only by attending Wikimania) on Wikipedia will know this aspect. This is a symptom of the fact that hardly anyone out here is really editing substantially. * Wikiculture - Think independently and question everything - Wikipedia achieved a lot and is interesting because it questions(or questioned) paradigms that are (or were) taken for granted. It uses direct interaction, direct democracy, rather than representatives. So voting people into committees / positions that work in private is not the way things are done here, it is by discussing ideas. Independence requires that you question any sense of group identity. * Wikiculture - Forsake cliques, identity traps and recognize in-out-group dynamics. In particular I think much of the poverty of editing from India comes from poor research driven by the idea that an Indian needs to represent India-related Wikipedia entries in a (POV) way that apparently instills pride among fellow-Indians! * Wikiculture - Wiki is not paper, editors do not need an office, the best community support is provided on-wiki. So again, why would having funds for an office, 3 employees visiting that office each day (and adding to Bangalore's traffic) help the Wikimedia movement? If something needs to be organized, let leadership be elected on Wiki and let there be an grant such as IEG on Wiki to support it. I have been quite intrigued by the idea of Special Interest Groups being defined by many here by the language in which they edit - one would expect SIGs to be subject dependent - so you could have astronomers, law experts, literature experts, and so on with members who work in multiple language mediums. There could be language specific technical SIGs that work on IME, Unicode etc but what we see here instead appears more like language chauvinism. Those professing to be subject matter experts (and really ought to members of specific SIGs) out here seem to contribute almost nothing to Wikipedia in their claimed area of expertise - for instance there are quite a number of law experts in the group and despite that, one finds that the law related articles, even on the English Wikipedia quite atrocious. With the amount of money being thrown here one would expect that at least something like the article on the Indian Copyright Act to be a GA if not an FA (on the English WP). I know that many of the people in the Wikimedia movement in India know each other from before, have worked in the same NGOs or are good friends. That is not to say that corporates and organizations across the world are devoid of old-school connections but full disclosure would certainly be appropriate here while not being disqualifying. I agree with the anonymous commentator and would rather like to see issues being addressed just the way Wikipedia works and not by Indian style ad hominem or argument from authority. In a somewhat Groucho-Marxian way I think an ideal club like the Wikimedia India chapter should abhor club-mentality and should probably not want to have me (or anyone) as an exclusive member. It should instead perhaps consider everyone as a member. And for full disclosure - my political leaning is obviously towards the anarchist-left-liberal end of the spectrum unlike most of the Indian Wikipedian movement. best wishes Shyamal en:User:Shyamal ___ 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] Few concerns
On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 10:03 AM, Shyamal L. lshya...@gmail.com wrote: * Wikiculture - Deal with issues not the persons raising them - what matters more than who. I want to strongly endorse this in my personal capacity and urge that when questions are raised on this public list, they be addressed. This is what I see on most wikimedia lists, but not on this one. We need to play our part in upholding the culture on which wikipedia and the sister projects are built and continue to thrive. Bishakha ___ 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
