[cross-posting to reach pan-India; apologies if you have got it from some other mailing list.]
Hi Folks,
As you might be aware, the Consultant, Team Support position is to be filled as part of the India Programs team. (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-September/004251….)
I am really pleased and excited to announce that Subhashish Panigrahi has agreed to join as Consultant, Community & Program Support.
Some of you might know Subhashish (or Subha as he's also called.) He is all of 23 and a wonderful Wikimedian from Odisha. He has a BE in Biotechnology from Sapthagiri College of Engineering, Bangalore. He has worked for about 1 1/2 years in business development and is currently based in Bangalore. He's been an active Wikimedian since a friend of his attended a Wikipedia 10th event in Bangalore in January and told Subha about Wikipedia. Subha then spent considerable time - quite a bit of it in Shiju Alex's living room apparently :-) - learning about Wikipedia. Since then, he's been on fire! He's helped the Bangalore community organise the monthly meet-ups, been a central figure in building community & momentum for Odia Wikipedia and has conducted outreach programs for Odia projects back home in Odisha as well as in Bangalore. He's also been helping out other projects and communities; a couple of weekends ago he was in Chennai conducting a WikiAcademy there. He is a fantastically inspiring example of a complete outsider being welcomed into the family, having his hand held in his growth as a newbie, charging forward taking responsibility & ownership and then spreading his skills & knowledge to others. He is also one of the sweetest human beings I have ever met. He is a perfect example of the Wikimedia Dream.
His interests (outside of Wikimedia) are cooking, graphic design and handwriting analysis. (I bet most of you who know Subha don't know that last bit about him. So the next time you see him, show him your writing and get him to reveal your deep dark secrets!) He has also been involved with campaigns for social work during the floods and cholera outbreak in Odisha and been involved with a Odisha community organisation, eOdissa.com.
Originally, the Consultant, Team Support position (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs#Team_S…) was to manage the back-end aspects of India Programs (basic accounting, basic personnel management, office administration, travel support, expense statement management, logistics support for the community, etc.) I have been looking at the actual work load involved and I do not think this is a full time role. The functions listed are essential and need to be done - but there is an opportunity to improve the richness of the position and it's value to the community. I'm therefore proposing that the Consultant, Team Support be redesignated to Consultant, Community & Program Support. I envisage this position to have about 1/3 of time spent on the back-end work listed above but 2/3 of time can be very productively utilised supporting community efforts - such as helping community building & outreach and supporting community-led initiatives. An important consideration I have for this redesignation is after looking at the specific skills that Subha brings to the table; I want to make sure that he has the required space to realise his potential and to support the community and movement.
Subha will of course continue to pursue his personal voluntary work for and as part of the Wikimedia community. The one question that he emphasized during the selection process was whether he would retain the flexibility to continue to pursue his personal passions on Wikimedia; the answer he got was a loud Y-E-S!!! :-) I'm delighted to have another community member joining the team.
He'll formally start in Delhi on January 9th 2012.
Do join me in welcoming him.
Warmest Regards,
hisham
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: CherianTinu Abraham <tinucherian(a)gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 11:03 AM
Subject: [Press]: The Hindu : "Contest to add files to Tamil Wikipedia
gathers steam"
To: "Discussion list on Indian language projects of Wikimedia." <
wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, wmin-members(a)googlegroups.com
The article is on national editions of The Hindu newspaper and back cover
page on many editions.
*
*
*The Hindu : "Contest to add files to Tamil Wikipedia gathers steam"*
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article2719118.ece?textsiz…
*The Tamil Wikimedia community has organised an international contest to
get more photos, videos and audios related to Tamil, Tamilians and Tamil
culture to the Tamil Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.*
*
*
*The aim of the contest (themed “Eluthu mattum arivanru” or “Knowledge
beyond text”) is “to increase the quality media content related to Tamil
and Tamilians in Wikimedia projects, to attract non-text contributors such
as photographers, graphic artists, animators, mapmakers and videographers
to Tamil Wiki projects and to create a model precedent for cooperation with
Wikimedia Foundation [WMF] in organising projects,” according to Bala
Jeyaraman, Wikipedia volunteer and lead co-ordinator for the contest.*
*
*
*People may send photos of places where Tamils reside, Tamil people
themselves, studies, heritage symbols, institutions, species (plants and
animals) and Diaspora; temples, places of worship and buildings. They can
send educational resources such as files used to teach in Tamil. Also
invited are maps, graphs, illustrations, diagrams, charts, audio and video
files that contain explanations in Tamil, pronunciation files for Tamil
words and phrases, audio recordings of literary works; audio and video
recordings of Tamil cultural practices, arts, dances or sports.*
*
*
*Foreign contribution*
*
*
*Contributions were coming in from Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Norway, America,
Canada, Germany and India, Mr. Jeyaraman said.*
*
*
*Kalaiarasy Kugarajh, who lives in Norway, is one of five persons
co-ordinating the project. She said she was delighted to know that a Tamil
Wikipedia existed. Using an encyclopaedia online was convenient and, being
of Tamil origin, she found getting information in Tamil very useful.*
*
*
*She initially began contributing to the Tamil Wikipedia and then added to
Tamil Wiktionary and other projects. She thought that contributing to Tamil
content online could help Tamil people with limited knowledge of English or
other languages. “Especially, when we live in a foreign country, we lack
the printed version of books, and dictionaries, encyclopaedias in Tamil. To
people who want to refer to something in Tamil or who want the Tamil
meaning for something, or want some old Tamil writings, the Tamil Wikipedia
and the sister projects are much helpful. The Tamil Diaspora can gain a lot
from Tamil Wiki projects,” she said. Besides, storing information online
was necessary and efficient.*
*
*
*Categorisation*
*
*
*“We are categorising the uploads and checking for any copyright
violations. We have already started to make use of the suitable uploads in
Wiki projects continuously too. Finally, we will evaluate the uploads to
select the winners.” The contest, while increasing the media files on
Tamil, would increase awareness among people of the Tamil Wiki as a source
of information and get contributions from them to Tamil Wiki projects in
future.*
*
*
*Chennai student Surya Prakash S, who suggested the theme name of the
contest, has uploaded more than 120 images taken on his campus (Anna
University), photos of film stars and Chennai monuments.*
*
*
*He said: “I just capture images using my cell phone and camera for this
contest. I haven't chosen any subject at all. I just captured images that
are useful for knowledge such as orchids and ‘bonsai' trees in the
“Semmozhi Poonga” [botanical gardens] and some rare herbs from my native
[home].”*
*
*
*He was adding files as he “knows well the status of Tamil content in
Internet.” The Tamil Nadu government should support such initiatives in its
academic institutions to increase the student community's activity in the
free, collaborative encyclopaedia-building project, he said.*
*
*
*Prize money*
*
*
*The Tamil Wikipedia Community and the WMF have sponsored a prize money of
$850 (with nine prizes) for winners. (The first, second and third prizes
are $200, $100 and $50. Three prizes of $100 each are for those uploading
the maximum number of quality entries.*
*
*
*A special prize of $150 is for media files on traditional Tamil arts and
crafts.*
*
*
*Winners would be announced on March 15, 2012 and they would get
certificates with their entries displayed on the front pages of Tamil Wiki
projects, said the invitation to contributors.*
*
*
*The contest (http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/contest, November 15, 2011 to
February 29, 2012) is open to all and is on Facebook (
http://www.facebook.com/tawmc).*
*
*
*
*
** People may send photos of places where Tamils reside, heritage symbols,
institutions, plants and animals*
** Tamil Diaspora can gain a lot from Tamil Wiki projects'*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
Important Note : The publisher ( The Hindu) 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.
A Wiki workshop in Salem was conducted on December 11, 2011 by the Tamil
Wiki community. Paavadi Girls higher secondary school had graciously given
their computer lab for this workshop. This was made possible by the efforts
of an excellent newcomer to Tamil wiki projects - ParvathiSri, who is a
school teacher in Salem.
The workshop started sharply at 10 AM. Attendees included school teachers,
students, college professors and Tamil enthusiasts. There were about 15
attendees in Total. Wikimedians ParvathiSri, Thagavaluzhavan, Sodabottle,
Essar & I spoke and conducted editing sessions.
I gave a presentation on Wikipedia. In that session I covered 5 pillars of
WP, reliability of WP, importance of references, tasks for a Wikipedian,
benefits to a Wikipedian by editing WP. After that Thagavaluzhavan spoke
about Wiktionary, where he used Ta Wiktionary to explain everything instead
of using a presentation. He explained the multilingual nature of Wiktionary
and the need for multimedia content in it.
Next, Sodabottle explained the other sister projects - Wikisource,
Wikinews, Wikibooks and Commons. He explained the necessity of content
creation in mother tongues. A short introduction to the ongoing Tamil Wiki
Media Contest (http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest<http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/contest>)
was also given.
Attendees didn't raise any questions in the Q&A session. But, they did ask
many doubts in the hands-on session that followed. During the session
the attendees
taught about creating account, WP navigation, terminology, uploading file,
using a file in an article, talking to another user. There were many
questions raised in this session. We, Wikimedians clarified their doubts
with clear explanations.
Around 1 PM the workshop came to an end. Group photos were taken. As a part
of Tamil Wiki Media Contest a small photo-walk had been arranged at the
end. User Essar, User Thagavaluzhavan and I took photos all along the road
sides of Salem Bazaar.
==Links==
1) Workshop page and talk page in ta wiki:
Event page<http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%…>
Talk Page<http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%…>
2) Images in commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedian_meetups_in_Salem,Dec2…
Thanks.
*$U®¥∩*
> http://goo.gl/RoMyo.com <http://FirefoxSurya.blogspot.com>
> http://about.me/suryaceg
>
>
Dear All,
I am sharing the statistical report of Indian language wiki projects for
the month of 2011 October. It is available here.
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/12/indian-language-wikipedia-statistics-…
Some interesting facts that I discovered this month are:
- Nearly *4.3 crore* readers are there for all Indic language
wikipedias! This number is huge and increased by nearly 1/3 in just 1
month! So Indic wikis has huge reader base.
- Marathi wiki community has increased its active editor base by nearly
33% in just 1 month.
- Sanskrit wikipedia has been amongst the shining stars of *all* Indic
language wikipedias in terms of adding new articles (12 new articles every
day in October) and edits per article (nearly 18 edits across all articles,
old and new.)
You can find more interesting facts from the report at
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/12/indian-language-wikipedia-statistics-…
Shiju