I strongly agree that we should NOT categorize or sideline any Wikipedians based on how they came to project or any particular association. The idea of any Wikimedia project is bring in more and more users ( editors and readers) and not bring in any kind of "caste system".
But I won't see English Wikipedia Community has a large problem and not Indic Languages ! The number of people that comes to the English Wikipedia is much much larger and also comes from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Hence many individuals coming to English Wikipedia may have highly varied perceptions, politics, prejudices and views. There are lots of people in English Wikipedia who are very welcoming and helpful to new comers or any others for that matter. On the other hand ( No offense, ok ? ), those coming to a particular Indic language comes mostly from the same state, culture and language ( with an exception of Hindi and very few others) and the incoming flow is much less than those coming to the English Wikipedia in terms of numbers. We must not forget than the number of active contributors in English Wikipedia ( just from India) is much larger than the sum total of all Indic languages. I am in not in any way saying that Indic Language Wikipedias are not important. There are also very important and has lots of the potential . But a blind generalization that English Wikipedia is bad and Indic Wikipedias are good may be also wrong. Regards Tinu Cherian ( Statuary Warning: Any mails from my personal email indicate my personal views as a community member, until otherwise specified . Any resemblance to any other person or mail , living or dead, chapter or community member is purely coincidental ) On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Shiju Alex <shijualexonl...@gmail.com>wrote: > IEP volunteers >> > > This is another branding going on to side line wikipedia editors. > Remember once a person start editing in Wikipedia they are wikipedians. > But here we are branding and sidelining them to prove our POV. > > I have seen members (both in this list and in other lists) using the > words outsiders, non-xyz language speakers, non-xyz city people to sideline > few community members (especially if they are newcomers). See now I am > side lined as an *ex-volunteer* so that the interested parties can prove > their POV. > > For me that is not an issue since my wiki contributions are not depending > on these branding and I will continue my volunteer contribution. The > community atmosphere in Indic wikis is entirely different especially when > it comes towards treatment towards new users. > > But when new members joining wiki if they are branded and sidelined how > will community grow for any language. From my experience with Malayalam > wikipedia, I must say Indic wiki communities perform better in this aspect. > When a user start editing in wiki, we must value their wiki contributions, > not by their association or non-association with any > organization/groups/individuals. > > > Shiju > > (Again this mail is sent as a current volunteer of Malayalam wiki projects) > > > > > On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 2:05 AM, Sudhanwa Jogalekar <sudhanwa....@gmail.com > > wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> Let me take the focus of discussions back to the report/s where it all >> started. >> >> >> On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 4:58 PM, Hisham <his...@wikimedia.org> wrote: >> > >> > >> > On Mar 7, 2012, at 1:38 PM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote: >> > >> > >> > In retrospect, I also understand the need for seperating the Foundation >> > activities as well. I think it is best to either go for total >> seperation of >> > community, chapter and Office or have general statements. >> > >> > >> > The work that India Program is doing is integrally embedded in community >> > building. This means we work directly with interested community members >> > across the world and with the Chapter. I don't think a total >> separation is >> > either practical or advisable. We should obviously avoid taking the >> option >> > of "general statements" - and we need to find a suitable island in >> between. >> >> I was going through the report and also saw another page here: >> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs/Outreach_Sessions/Feb >> that gives listing of outreach sessions by IP. >> >> Another page by chapter also shows outreach reports. It is on the main >> page of wiki. >> >> IP and Chapter are having more or less similar functions. They do >> similar outreach efforts and have same people in some functions. >> >> Somehow, the reports from IP as well has chapter has about 9 entries >> each for outreach program and only 2 are common !! >> >> One of them is the now famous NITT academy and the other one is GNUnify. >> I was surprised to see only the English academy entry in GNUnify that >> was conducted by Ashwin and helped by IEP volunteers. The Marathi >> academy conducted at the same lab immediately after the lunch break is >> not mentioned at all. Also surprising was the entry where Moksh was >> involved. Possibly, it was supported by some IP person. >> >> General observation is that the report from IP shows the listing where >> only the IP, IEP people were involved and the chapter report mentions >> otherwise. >> >> This clearly means that there is a disconnect. I dont see any of the >> IEP/IP people joining the Pune community activities (except a few). In >> fact, one of the outreach session (mentioned in the report) by the IEP >> was not even mentioned on any of the lists. >> >> Possibly, there is some polarisation somewhere and personally I feel >> that it could be in favour of IP; simply because volunteers become >> paid activists there. >> >> Lets take a very much possible theoretical case(like the NITT, where >> volunteers had bad experiences) where a volunteer goes for conducting >> an academy and is not treated well and has bad facilities of >> lodging/boarding/travel etc. And for the same academy, a person from >> IP is also going and flies to/from the place and lives in a nice >> hotel. In such case, where and how to compare the voluntary work v/s >> paid staff work? The volunteer has spent his time and resouces for >> hardly anything but the staff is being paid for the same activity as >> part of the job. >> >> Ashwin has hinted about evaluating voluntary efforts. Is there any >> method to do it? >> >> Community members are same for both- chapter as well as IP. However, >> chapter is answerable to the community even when all the community >> members are not necessarily chapter members. (just a technical point. >> not to be emphasised), Whereas IP may not have any binding on anything >> and still get all kind of funds from WMF. And also hire people from >> the community for doing the same work people were earlier doing >> voluntarily. Also remember that chapter and the community members do >> their work voluntarily and not get paid for it. >> >> Well, just to clarify, I am not saying that community members, IP >> staff and IEP volunteers are not doing work. They are really doing >> fantastic work and that must to be appreciated. However, all those >> efforts/work has to be taken in various perspectives mentioned in this >> thread. >> >> Best regards >> -Sudhanwa >> >> >> ~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~! >> web: www.sudhanwa.com blog: www.sudhanwa.in >> Twitter: sudhanwa Check on FB, Linkedin for more. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > >
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