विकिपीडिया:प्रकीर्णसभा

CIS-A2K Newsletter September 2016

Hello,
CIS-A2K has published their newsletter for the months of September 2016. The edition includes details about these topics:

• Gender gap study: Another 5 Years: What Have We Learned about the Wikipedia Gender Gap and What Has Been Done?
• Program report: Wikiwomen’s Meetup at St. Agnes College Explores Potentials and Plans of Women Editors in Mangalore, Karnataka
• Program report: A workshop to improve Telugu Wikipedia articles on Nobel laureates
• Article: ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ଦିବସ: ଆମ ହାତେ ଆମ କୋଡ଼ ଲେଖିବା

Please read the complete newsletter here. --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०६:१५, १९ अक्तूबर २०१६ (UTC)
If you want to subscribe/unsubscribe this newsletter, click here.

CIS-A2K Newsletter October 2016

Hello,
CIS-A2K has published their newsletter for the months of October 2016. The edition includes details about these topics:

• Blog post Wikipedia Asian Month — 2016 iteration starts on 1 November — a revisit
• Program report: Impact Report form for the Annual Program Grant
• Program report: Kannada Wikipedia Education Program at Christ university: Work so far
• Article: What Indian Language Wikipedias can do for Greater Open Access in India
• Article: What Indian Language Wikipedias can do for Greater Open Access in India
• . . . and more

Please read the complete newsletter here. --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०५:१८, २१ नवम्बर २०१६ (UTC)
If you want to subscribe/unsubscribe this newsletter, click here.

Invitation for Office Hours with WMF's Global Reach team

Hi,

On behalf of Wikimedia Foundation’s Global Reach Team, we would like to invite all the South Asian Wikimedia communities to our office hours to discuss our work in the region.

Meeting Details

Date: Thursday, 19th January 2017

Time: 16:00 UTC/21:30 IST

Duration: 1 hour

Language: English

Google Hangout Location:

https://hangouts.google.com/hangouts/_/ytl/w5sE6IZTXERWH0VvKtDRiAm9WE1eZ5mYcnQm0h7dHok=?hl=en_US&authuser=0

If you are not able to join the hangout, you can watch the live stream with a few seconds lag at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD-VCpQkVSk

Etherpad: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Global_Reach_South_Asia_Office_Hours

Agenda

• Introduction of Global Reach Team and office hours
• Research around New Readers and our partnership themes
• Feedback for next office hours
• Q&A

We plan to hold these office hours at regular intervals. FYI, office hours for South East Asia and Central Asia/Eastern Europe will be held separately; given the size of communities, we needed to break down the regions.

Please feel free to add your questions, comments, and expectations in the Etherpad document shared above. You can also reach out to sgupta@wikimedia.org and rayyakkannu@wikimedia.org for any clarification. Please help us translate and share this invitation in community social media channels to spread the word.

Thanks,

Ravishankar Ayyakkannu, Manager, Strategic Partnerships, Asia, Wikimedia Foundation --१६:२३, १७ जनवरी २०१७ (UTC)

We thank everyone for participating in the Office hours with WMF's Global Reach team. Meeting notes can be found here. You can also watch the YouTube recording here.

--Ravishankar Ayyakkannu, Manager, Strategic Partnerships, Asia, Wikimedia Foundation. १०:१९, १ फरवरी २०१७ (UTC)

Train-the-Trainer 2017: Invitation to participate

Sorry for writing in English, please translate this message to your language, if possible

Hello,
It gives us great pleasure to inform that the Train-the-Trainer (TTT) 2017 programme organised by CIS-A2K is going to be held from 20-22 February 2017.

What is TTT?
Train the Trainer or TTT is a residential training program. The program attempts to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. Earlier TTT have been conducted in 2013, 2015 and 2016.

Who should join?

• Any active Wikimedian contributing to any Indic language Wikimedia project is eligible to apply.
• An editor must have 500+ edits.
• Anyone who have already participated in an earlier iteration of TTT, can not apply.

Please see more about this program and apply to participate or encourage the deserving candidates from your community to do so: CIS-A2K/Events/Train the Trainer Program/2017

If you have any question, please let us know.
Regards. Tito Dutta (CIS-A2K) sent using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०५:३५, १८ जनवरी २०१७ (UTC)

MediaWiki Training 2017: Invitation to participate

Hello,
We are glad to inform that MediaWiki Training or MWT 2017 is going to be conducted between 24-26 February 2017 at Bangalore.

MWT is a residential training workshop that attempts to groom technical leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. We invite active Indian Wikimedia community members to participate in this workshop.

Please find details about this event here.

Let us know if you have any question.
Regards. -- Tito Dutta (CIS-A2K) sent using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०३:२५, २१ जनवरी २०१७ (UTC)

CIS-A2K Technical Wishes 2017 Announcement

Sorry for posting this message in English, please feel free to translate the message

Greetings from CIS-A2K!

CIS-A2K is happy to announce the Technical Wishes Project beginning July 2017. We now welcome requests from Indic language communities on our Technical Request page. This project, inspired by WMDE, is an effort to document and hopefully resolve the technical issues that have long plagued Indian Wikimedians. For more details, please check our Technical Requests page. Please feel free to ask questions or contact us at tito@cis-india.org and manasa@cis-india.org. Regards. --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १८:०६, १ जुलाई २०१७ (UTC)

CIS-A2K Newsletter June 2017

Hello,
CIS-A2K has published their newsletter for the months of June 2017. The edition includes details about these topics:

• Wikidata Workshop: South India
• Tallapaka Pada Sahityam is now on Wikisource
• Thematic Edit-a-thon at Yashawantrao Chavan Institute of Science, Satara
• Asian Athletics Championships 2017 Edit-a-thon

Please read the complete newsletter here.
If you want to subscribe/unsubscribe this newsletter, click here. --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०४:०१, ५ अगस्त २०१७ (UTC)

CIS-A2K Newsletter July 2017

Hello,
CIS-A2K has published their newsletter for the months of July 2017. The edition includes details about these topics:

• Telugu Wikisource Workshop
• Marathi Wikipedia Workshop in Sangli, Maharashtra
• Tallapaka Pada Sahityam is now on Wikisource
• Wikipedia Workshop on Template Creation and Modification Conducted in Bengaluru

Please read the complete newsletter here.
If you want to subscribe/unsubscribe this newsletter, click here. --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०३:५८, १७ अगस्त २०१७ (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments 2017 in India

Greetings from Wikimedia India! Wiki Loves Monuments in India is an upcoming photo competition, part of the bigger Wiki Loves Monuments 2017. We welcome you all to be part of it, as participants and as volunteers. The aim of the contest is to ask the general public—readers and users of Wikipedia, photographers, hobbyists, etc.—to take pictures of cultural heritage monuments and upload them to Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and its sister projects. This in turn would lead to creation of new articles along with development of new articles in Indian languages.

We seek your support to make this event a grand success ! Please sign up here -- Suyash Dwivedi, sent using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ११:५०, २५ अगस्त २०१७ (UTC)

Wikidata Workshops in India in September 2017

Apologies for writing the message in English. Please feel free to translate the message to your language.

Hello,
We are glad to inform you that Asaf Bartov will visit India in the month of September, and will be conducting local workshops on Wikidata and other recent technologies and tools. You might be aware that Asaf is a promoter and trainer of Wikidata, and before and during this year's Wikimania, Indic Wikimedians from two communities requested Asaf to visit India to conduct more Wikidata workshops.
The workshop would include extensive Wikidata training, from absolute beginner level through querying and embedding Wikidata in Wikipedia (incl. infoboxes), as well as a general tools demonstration, including Quarry. Additionally, time would be made for general Q&A ("ask me anything") to let people use the opportunity to directly ask a WMF representative anything that they have on their mind.
Asaf would come to India on 29 August. Please see the detailed plan here. Please contact here or write to Asaf if you have any question. Regards. -- Titodutta, sent using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १३:३७, २५ अगस्त २०१७ (UTC)

Featured Wikimedian [September 2017]

Greeting, on behalf of Wikimedia India, I, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga from the Executive Committee, introduce you to the Featured Wikimedian of the Month for September 2017, Swapnil Karambelkar.

Swapnil Karambelkar is one of the most active Wikimedians from the Hindi community. Swapnil hails from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, and by profession a Mechanical Engineering, who runs his own firm based on factory automation and education. Swapnil joined Wikipedia in August 2016, through "Wiki Loves Monuments". He initially started off with uploading images to Commons and then moved onto Hindi Wikipedia, contributing to culture and military topics. He also contributes to Hindi Wikibooks and Wikiversity. Soon after, he got extensively involved in various outreach activities. He co-organized "Hindi Wiki Conference" in January 2017, at Bhopal. He delivered various lectures on Wikimedia movement in various institutions like Atal Bihari Hindi University, Sanskrit Sansthanam and NIT Bhopal. Along with Suyash Dwivedi, Swapnil co-organized the first ever regular GLAM project in India at National Museum of Natural Heritage, Bhopal. Swapnil is an account creator on Hindi Wikipedia and is an admin on the beta version on Wikiversity. Swapnil has been instrumental in establishing the first Indic language version of Wikiversity, the Hindi Wikiversity. As asked regarding his motivation to contribute to the Wikimedia movement, Swapnil says, "It is the realization that though there is abundance of knowledge around us, but it is yet untapped and not documented".

Bhubaneswar Heritage Edit-a-thon 2017

Hello,
The Odia Wikimedia Community and CIS-A2K are happy to announce the "Bhubaneswar Heritage Edit-a-thon" between 12 October and 10 November 2017

This Bhubaneswar Heritage Edit-a-thon aims to create, expand, and improve articles related to monuments in the Indian city of Bhubaneswar.

Please see the event page here.

We invite you to participate in this edit-a-thon, please add your name to this list here.

You can find more details about the edit-a-thon and the list of articles to be improved here: here.

Please feel free to ask questions. -- User:Titodutta (sent using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०९:२०, ४ अक्तूबर २०१७ (UTC))

CIS-A2K Newsletter August September 2017

Hello,
CIS-A2K has published their newsletter for the months of August and September 2017. Please find below details of our August and September newsletters:

August was a busy month with events across our Marathi and Kannada Focus Language Areas.

1. Workshop on Wikimedia Projects at Ismailsaheb Mulla Law College, Satara
2. Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal
3. Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at MGM Trust's College of Journalism and Mass Communication, Aurangabad
4. Orientation Program at Kannada University, Hampi

Please read our Meta newsletter here.

September consisted of Marathi language workshop as well as an online policy discussion on Telugu Wikipedia.

1. Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Solapur University
2. Discussion on Creation of Social Media Guidelines & Strategy for Telugu Wikimedia

Please read our Meta newsletter here: here
If you want to subscribe/unsubscribe this newsletter, click here.

Sent using --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०४:२३, ६ नवम्बर २०१७ (UTC)

Featured Wikimedian [November 2017]

On behalf of Wikimedia India, I hereby announce the Featured Wikimedian for November 2017.

Balaji Jagadesh is one of the top contributors from the Tamil Wikimedia community. Though he started contributing since 2009, he was quite active after his participation in WikiConference India 2011. Initially he started contributing to Tamil Wikipedia, but was later attracted towards Tamil Wikisource, Tamil Wikitionary, and Wikidata. His global contributions count to whooping 2,50,000 edits. He is an admin on Tamil Wikitionary.

After his interaction with Mr. Loganathan (User:Info-farmer), Balaji was very much motivated to contribute to Wikimedia projects. He says, "When I was editing in Tamil Wikipedia, I used to translate science articles from English to Tamil. But faced problem in finding equivalent Tamil words. The English to Tamil dictionaries were inadequate. Hence I felt the need to work in the Tamil Wikitionary. After a while there was a collaboration with Tamil Wikisource and Tamil Nadu Government through Tamil Virtual University through 2000 CC0 books were uploaded".

As an active contributor to Wikidata, he says that the vision of Wikimedia movement is, "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge", but with Wikidata we can make it, "Imagine a world in which every single human being and every single machine can freely share in the sum of all knowledge". Apart from regular contributions, he also created templates to Tamil Wikimedia projects, and also maintains Tamil Wikisource's official Twitter handle.

Balaji hails from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and is a post-graduate is Physics. He currently works as a Senior Geophysicist in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC).

Any editor can propose a fellow to be a Featured Wikimedia at: http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Featured_Wikimedian/Nominations

MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०९:५९, १० नवम्बर २०१७ (UTC)

Featured Wikimedian [December 2017]

Greetings, on behalf of Wikimedia India, I, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga introduce you to the Featured Wikimedian of the Month for December 2017, Hrishikes Sen.

Hrishikes Sen is one of the most active contributors from the Bengali community. Though he started editing English and Bengali Wikipedia in 2007, he had to take a long break due to professional constraints. Later he started working on Bengali Wikisource from 2012, and ever since, he has been an active contributor, and expanded to English Wikisource as well. With more than 45,000 global edits, he is an admin on English Wikisource.

As a child, Hrishikes always found reading books as a fascinating task. He says that he finds reference books as interesting as mystery novels. That interest, over years motivated him to contribute to Wikisource. The journey and motivation behind his contributions to Wikisource can be read from a post on WMF's blog, Why I contribute to Wikisource?. He says that till date he's been only active online, but he plans to do outreach in the coming future. He hopes that attending the 10th Anniversary Celebratory Workshop of Bengali Wikisource in Kolkata on 10 December may be a harbinger to his future offline activities.

Hrishikes believes that Wikisource will one day emerge as of the top digital libraries in the world, and says that as a store-house for primary and secondary source materials for Wikipedia, the importance of Wikisource is steadily becoming invaluable. Much of his time, Hrishikes spends working around Indian works, with a special focus on the works of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Jagadish Chandra Bose, and Rabindranath Tagore. Apart from being a proofreader, he uploaded more than 750 books spreading over five languages to Wikimedia Commons.

Hrishikes hails from Kolkata, but is presently based in Lucknow. By profession, he is a doctor serving in paramilitary forces. To his Bengali friends, he welcomes them to contribute to Bengali Wikisource which has more than 676,000 that have completed Optical Character Recognition and are waiting to be proofread.

Nomination can be made at: http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Featured_Wikimedian/Nominations

MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १३:०९, १ दिसम्बर २०१७ (UTC)

Train-the-Trainer 2018

Apologies for writing in English, please consider translating the message

Hello,

We are delighted to inform that the Train-the-Trainer (TTT) 2018 programme organised by CIS-A2K will be held from 26-28 January 2018, in Mysore, Karnataka, India.

What is TTT? Train the Trainer or TTT is a residential training program. The program attempts to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community (including English) members. Earlier TTT have been conducted in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Who should join?

• An editor who is interested to conduct real-life and online Wiki-events such as outreach, workshop, GLAM, edit-a-thon, photowalk etc.
• Any active Wikimedian contributing to any Indic language Wikimedia project is eligible to apply.
• The editor must have 500+ global edits before 1 November 2017
• Anyone who has already participated in an earlier iteration of TTT, can not apply.

Please learn more about this program and apply to participate or encourage the deserving candidates from your community to do so. -- Titodutta using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १७:०३, १ दिसम्बर २०१७ (UTC)

CIS-A2K Newsletter October 2017

Hello,
CIS-A2K has published their newsletter for the months of October 2017. The edition includes details about these topics:

• Marathi Wikipedia - Vishwakosh Workshop for Science writers in IUCAA, Pune
• Bhubaneswar Heritage Edit-a-thon
• Odia Wikisource anniversary
• CIS-A2K signs MoU with Telangana Government
• Indian Women Bureaucrats: Wikipedia Edit-a-thon
• Interview with Asaf Bartov

Please read the complete newsletter here.
If you want to subscribe/unsubscribe this newsletter, click here. Sent using --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०५:४३, ४ दिसम्बर २०१७ (UTC)

Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program: Needs Assessment Survey

Please translate this message if possible

Hello,
We are extremely delighted to inform that the Wikimedia Foundation and CIS-A2K have come together in a partnership with Google to launch a pilot project Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program to address local online knowledge content gaps in India. In order to engage and support active Wikipedia volunteers to produce valuable new content in local Indian languages, we are conducting a needs assessment survey. The aim of this survey is to understand the needs of the Indic Wikimedia community and ascertaining their infrastructure requirements that we can fulfill during the course of this project.

Please help us by participating in the survey here.

Your opinion will help to make the program better. Kindly share this survey across your communities, user groups and network of fellow Indic Wikimedians. -- m:User:Titodutta, sent using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०८:५१, ८ दिसम्बर २०१७ (UTC)

Wikigraphists Bootcamp (2018 India)

Greetings,

It is being planned to organize Wikigraphists Bootcamp in India, please fill out the survey form to help the organizers. Your responses will help organizers understand what level of demand there is for the event (how many people in your community think it is important that the event happens). At the end of the day, the participants will turn out to have knowledge to create drawings, illustrations, diagrams, maps, graphs, bar charts etc. and get to know to how to tune the images to meet the QI and FP criteria. For more information and link to survey form, please visit Talk:Wikigraphists Bootcamp (2018 India). MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १२:४३, १५ जनवरी २०१८ (UTC)

Wikigraphists Bootcamp Survey Reminder

Greetings,

As it has already been notified about Wikigraphists Bootcamp in India, for training related to creation drawings, illustrations, diagrams, maps, graphs, bar charts etc. and to tune the images to meet the QI and FP criteria, please fill the survey form linked from Talk:Wikigraphists Bootcamp (2018 India). It'll help the organizers to assess the needs of the community, and plan accordingly. Please ignore if already done. Krishna Chaitanya Velaga ०३:०३, २१ जनवरी २०१८ (UTC)

International Mother Langage Day and Open Data Day Wikidata Edit-a-thon

Please translate the message to your language, if applicable

Hello,
We are happy to inform you that a national level Wikidata editing campaign "IMLD-ODD 2018 Wikidata India Edit-a-thon" on content related to India is being organized from from 21 February 2018 to 3 March 2018. This edit-a-thon marks International Mother Language Day and Open Data Day.

Please learn more about this event: here.
Please consider participating in the event, by joining here.
You may get a list of suggested items to work on here.

Please let us know if you have question. -- Titodutta using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०७:१२, २१ फरवरी २०१८ (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (May 2018)

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access, accounts to research and tools as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials on the Library Card platform:

• Rock's Backpages – Music articles and interviews from the 1950s onwards - 50 accounts
• Invaluable – Database of more than 50 million auctions and over 500,000 artists - 15 accounts
• Termsoup – Translation tool

Expansions

• Fold3 – Available content has more than doubled, now including new military collections from the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.
• Oxford University Press – The Scholarship collection now includes Electronic Enlightenment
• Alexander Street Press – Women and Social Movements Library now available
• Cambridge University Press – Orlando Collection now available

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including Baylor University Press, Loeb Classical Library, Cairn, Gale and Bloomsbury.

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team १८:०३, ३० मई २०१८ (UTC)

You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

Wikigraphists Bootcamp (2018 India): Applications are open

Wikigraphists Bootcamp (2018 India) to be tentatively held in the last weekend of September 2018. This is going to be a three-day training workshop to equip the participants with the skills to create illustrations and digital drawings in SVG format, using software like Inkscape.

Minimum eligibility criteria to participate is as below:

• Active Wikimedians from India contributing to any Indic language Wikimedia projects.
• At least 1,500 global edits till 30 May 2018.
• At least 500 edits to home-Wikipedia (excluding User-space).

Please apply at the following link before 16th June 2018: Wikigraphists Bootcamp (2018 India) Scholarships.

MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ११:१२, १२ जून २०१८ (UTC)

Call for bids to host Train-the-Trainer 2019

Apologies for writing in English, please consider translating the message

Hello everyone,

This year CIS-A2K is seeking expressions of interest from interested communities in India for hosting the Train-the-Trainer 2019.

Train-the-Trainer or TTT is a residential training program which attempts to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community (including English) members. Earlier TTT has been conducted in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

If you're interested in hosting the program, Following are the per-requests to propose a bid:

• Active local community which is willing to support conducting the event
  • At least 4 Community members should come together and propose the city. Women Wikimedians in organizing team is highly recommended.
• The city should have at least an International airport.
• Venue and accommodations should be available for the event dates.
  • Participants size of TTT is generally between 20-25.
  • Venue should have good Internet connectivity and conference space for the above-mentioned size of participants.
• Discussion in the local community.

Please learn more about the Train-the-Trainer program and to submit your proposal please visit this page. Feel free to reach to me for more information or email titocis-india.org

Best!

Pavan Santhosh ( MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०५:५२, ६ जनवरी २०१९ (UTC) )

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (March 2019)

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access, accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials on the Library Card platform:

• Kinige – Primarily Indian-language ebooks - 10 books per month
• Gale – Times Digital Archive collection added (covering 1785-2013)
• JSTOR – New applications now being taken again

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including Baylor University Press, Taylor & Francis, Cairn, Annual Reviews and Bloomsbury. You can request new partnerships on our Suggestions page.

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team १७:४०, १३ मार्च २०१९ (UTC)

You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

Train-the-Trainer 2019 Application open

Apologies for writing in English, please consider translating
Hello,
It gives us great pleasure to inform that the Train-the-Trainer (TTT) 2019 programme organised by CIS-A2K is going to be held from 31 May, 1 & 2 June 2019.

What is TTT?
Train the Trainer or TTT is a residential training program. The program attempts to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. Earlier TTT has been conducted in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Who should apply?

• Any active Wikimedian contributing to any Indic language Wikimedia project (including English) is eligible to apply.
• An editor must have 600+ edits on Zero-namespace till 31 March 2019.
• Anyone who has the interest to conduct offline/real-life Wiki events.
• Note: anyone who has already participated in an earlier iteration of TTT, cannot apply.

Please learn more about this program and apply to participate or encourage the deserving candidates from your community to do so. Regards. -- Tito (CIS-A2K), sent using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०५:०७, २६ अप्रैल २०१९ (UTC)

Wikimedia Education SAARC conference application is now open

Apologies for writing in English, please consider translating

Greetings from CIS-A2K,

The Wikimedia Education SAARC conference will take place on 20-22 June 2019. Wikimedians from Indian, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Afghanistan can apply for the scholarship. This event will take place at Christ University, Bangalore.

Who should apply?

• Any active contributor to a Wikimedia project, or Wikimedia volunteer in any other capacity, from the South Asian subcontinent is eligible to apply
• An editor must have 1000+ edits before 1 May 2019.
• Anyone who has the interest to conduct offline/real-life Wikimedia Education events.
• Activity within the Wikimedia movement will be the main criteria for evaluation. Participation in non-Wikimedia free knowledge, free software, collaborative or educational initiatives, working with institutions is a plus.

Please know more about this program and apply to participate or encourage the deserving candidates from your community to do so. Regards.Ananth (CIS-A2K) using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १३:५४, ११ मई २०१९ (UTC)

CIS-A2K: 3 Work positions open

Hello,
Greetings for CIS-A2K. We want to inform you that 3 new positions are open at this moment.

• Communication officer: (staff position) The person will work on CIS-A2K's blogs, reports, newsletters, social media activities, and over-all CIS-A2K general communication. The last date of application is 4 June 2019.
• Wikidata consultant: (consultant position), The person will work on CIS-A2K's Wikidata plan, and will support and strengthen Wikidata community in India. The last date of application is 31 May 2019
• Project Tiger co-ordinatorː (consultant position) The person will support Project tiger related communication, documentation and coordination, Chromebook disbursal, internet support etc. The last date of application is 7 June 2019.

For details about these opportunities please see here. -- Tito (CIS-A2K), sent using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १०:०२, २२ मई २०१९ (UTC)

Project Tiger 2.0

Sorry for writing this message in English - feel free to help us translating it

Play media

Hello,

We are glad to inform you that Project Tiger 2.0/GLOW is going to start very soon. You know about Project Tiger first iteration where we saw exciting and encouraging participation from different Indian Wikimedia communities. To know about Project Tiger 1.0 please see this page

Like project Tiger 1.0, This iteration will have 2 components

• Infrastructure support - Supporting Wikimedians from India with internet support for 6 months and providing Chrome books.
• Article writing contest - A 3-month article writing contest will be conducted for Indian Wikimedians communities. Following community feedback, we noted some community members wanted the process of article list generation to be improved. In this iteration, there will be at least two lists of articles

1. Google-generated list,
2. Community suggested a list. Google generated list will be given to the community members before finalising the final list. On the other hand, the community may create a list by discussing among the community over Village pump, Mailing list and similar discussion channels.

Thanks for your attention,
user:Ananth (CIS-A2K)
Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १३:४२, २० अगस्त २०१९ (UTC)

Project Tiger important 2.0 updates

Infrastructure support

Did you know that applications for Chromebooks and Internet stipends under Project Tiger 2.0 are open since 25th August 2019?
We have already received 35 applications as of now from 12 communities. If you are interested to apply, please visit the support page and apply on or before 14 September 2019.

Article writing contest

As part of the article writing contest of Project Tiger 2.0, we request each community to create their own list by discussing on the village pump and put it on respective topic list.

We also request you to create a pan India article list which needs to be part of writing contest by voting under each topic here

For any query, feel free to contact us on the talk page 😊
Thanks for your attention
Ananth (CIS-A2K) using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १३:२०, २९ अगस्त २०१९ (UTC)

Wikimedia movement strategy recommendations India salon

Please translate this message to your language if possible.

Greetings,

You know Strategy Working Groups have published draft recommendations at the beginning of August. On 14-15 September we are organising a strategy salon/conference at Bangalore/Delhi (exact venue to be decided) It'll be a 2 days' residential conference and the event aims to provide a discussion platform for experienced Wikimedians in India to learn, discuss and comment about the draft recommendations. Feedback and discussions will be documented.

If you are a Wikipedian from India, and want to discuss the draft recommendations, or learn more about them, you may apply to participate in the event.

Please have a look at the event page for more details The last date of application is 7 September 2019.

It would be great if you share this information who needs this. For questions, please write on the event talk page, or email me at tito+indiasalon@cis-india.org

Thanks for your attention
Ananth (CIS-A2K) sent through MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०९:१५, २ सितम्बर २०१९ (UTC)

Project Tiger Article writing contest Update

Sorry for writing this message in English - feel free to help us translating it

Hello all,

We would like to give some of the important updates about Project Tiger 2.0.

• It was informed about the community-generated list for the Article writing contest. The deadline for this has been extended till 30 September 2019 since few communities are working on it.  
• We are expecting the Project Tiger 2.0 article writing contest to begin from 10 October 2019 and also there is a need for creating the writing contest page in the local Wiki's if you are interested to help please contact User talk:Nitesh (CIS-A2K) & User talk:SuswethaK(CIS-A2K). 

Looking forward to exciting participation this year! Please let us know if you have any doubts.

Thanks for your attention
Ananth (CIS-A2K)
sent by MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०९:४०, २७ सितम्बर २०१९ (UTC)

GLOW edit-a-thon starts on 10 October 2019

Excuse us for writing in English, kindly translate the message if possible

Hello everyone,

Hope this message finds you well. Here are some important updates about Project Tiger 2.0/GLOW edit-a-thon.

• The participating communities are requested to create an event page on their Wikipedia (which has been already updated with template link in the last post). Please prepare this local event page before 10 October (i.e. Edit-a-thon starting date)
• All articles will be submitted here under Project Tiger 2.0. Please copy-paste the fountain tool link in the section of submitted articles. Please see the links here on this page.

Regards. -- User:Nitesh (CIS-A2K) and User:SuswethaK(CIS-A2K) (on benhalf of Project Tiger team) using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १९:४१, ४ अक्तूबर २०१९ (UTC)

Project Tiger 2.0: Article contest jury information

Excuse us for writing in English, kindly translate the message if possible

Hello everyone,

We want to inform you that Project Tiger 2.0 is going to begin on 10 October. It's crucial to select jury for the writing contest as soon as possible. Jury members will assess the articles.

Please start discussing on your respective village pump and add your name here as a jury for writing contest if you are interested. Thank you. --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १७:०६, ८ अक्तूबर २०१९ (UTC)

Project Tiger Article writing contest Jury Update

Hello all,

There are some issues that need to be addressed regarding the Juries of the Project Tiger 2.0 article writing contest. Some of the User has shown interest to be a jury and evaluate the articles created as the part of the writing contest. But they don't meet the eligibility criteria. Please discuss this aspect with the community, if the community feel that they have the potential to be a jury then we can go ahead. If not please make a decision on who can be the jury members from your community within two days. The community members can change the juries members in the later stage of the writing contest if the work done is not satisfactory or the jury member is inactive with the proper discussion over the village pump.

Regards,
Project Tiger team at CIS-A2K
Sent through--MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १०:५१, १७ अक्तूबर २०१९ (UTC)

Project Tiger update: Let's walk together with Wikipedia Asian Month and WWWW

The Tiger says "Happy Dipavali" to you

Apologies for writing in English, Kindly translate this message if possible.

Greetings!

First of all "Happy Dipavali/Festive season". On behalf of the Project Tiger 2.0 team we have exciting news for all. Thanks for your enthusiastic participation in Project Tiger 2.0. You also know that there is a couple of interesting edit-a-thons around. We are happy to inform that the Project Tiger article list just got bigger.

We'll collaborate on Project Tiger article writing contest with Wikipedia Asian Month 2019 (WAM2019) and Wiki Women for Women Wellbeing 2019 (WWWW-2019). Most communities took part in these events in the previous iterations. Fortunately this year, all three contests are happening at the same time.

Wikipedia Asian Month agenda is to increase Asian content on Wikipedias. There is no requirement for selecting an article from the list provided. Any topic related to Asia can be chosen to write an article in WAM. This contest runs 1 November till 30 November. For more rules and guidelines, you can follow the event page on Meta or local Wikis.

WWWW focus is on increase content related to women's health issues on Indic language Wikipedias. WWWW 2019 will start from 1 November 2019 and will continue till 10 January 2020. A common list of articles will be provided to write on.

In brief: The articles you are submitting for Wikipedia Asian Month or WWWW, you may submit the same articles for Project Tiger also. Articles created under any of these events can be submitted to fountain tool of Project Tiger 2.0. Article creation rule will remain the same for every community. -- sent using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १२:४४, २९ अक्तूबर २०१९ (UTC)

Project Tiger 2.0 - Hardware support recipients list

Excuse us for writing in English, kindly translate the message if possible

Hello everyone,

Thank you all for actively participating and contributing to the writing contest of Project Tiger 2.0. We are very happy to announce the much-awaited results of the hardware support applications. You can see the names of recipients for laptop here and for laptop see here.

78 Wikimedians will be provided with internet stipends and 50 Wikimedians will be provided with laptop support. Laptops will be delivered to all selected recipients and we will email you in person to collect details. Thank you once again.

Regards. -- User:Nitesh (CIS-A2K) and User:SuswethaK(CIS-A2K) (on benhalf of Project Tiger team)
using --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०७:१५, ८ नवम्बर २०१९ (UTC)

[WikiConference India 2020] Invitation to participate in the Community Engagement Survey

This is an invitation to participate in the Community Engagement Survey, which is one of the key requirements for drafting the Conference & Event Grant application for WikiConference India 2020 to the Wikimedia Foundation. The survey will have questions regarding a few demographic details, your experience with Wikimedia, challenges and needs, and your expectations for WCI 2020. The responses will help us to form an initial idea of what is expected out of WCI 2020, and draft the grant application accordingly. Please note that this will not directly influence the specificities of the program, there will be a detailed survey to assess the program needs post-funding decision.

• Please fill the survey at; https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd7_hpoIKHxGW31RepX_y4QxVqoodsCFOKatMTzxsJ2Vbkd-Q/viewform
• The survey will be open until 23:59 hrs of 22 December 2019.

MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०९:०५, १८ दिसम्बर २०१९ (UTC)

Project Tiger updates - quality of articles

Excuse us for writing in English, kindly translate the message if possible

Hello everyone,

It has been around 70 days since Project Tiger 2.0 started and we are amazed by the enthusiasm and active participation being shown by all the communities. As much as we celebrate the numbers and statistics, we would like to reinstate that the quality of articles is what matters the most. Project Tiger does not encourage articles that do not have encyclopedic value. Hence we request participants to take care of the quality of the articles submitted. Because Wikipedia is not about winning, it is about users collectively building a reliable encyclopedia.

Many thanks and we hope to see the energy going! (on behalf of Project Tiger team)
sent using --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १६:२१, १९ दिसम्बर २०१९ (UTC)

Project Tiger 2.0 - last date of the contest

Excuse us for writing in English, kindly translate the message if possible

Greetings from CIS-A2K!

It has been 86 days since Project Tiger 2.0 article writing contest started and all 15 communities have been performing extremely well, beyond the expectations. 

The 3-month contest will come to an end on 11 January 2020 at 11.59 PM IST. We thank all the Wikipedians who have been contributing tirelessly since the last 2 months and wish you continue the same in these last 5 days!

Thanks for your attention
using --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १३:३५, ६ जनवरी २०२० (UTC)

Wiki Loves Women South Asia 2020

Wiki Loves Women is back with the 2020 edition. Join us to celebrate women and queer community in Folklore theme and enrich Wikipedia with the local culture of your region. Happening from 1 February-31 March, Wiki Loves Women South Asia welcomes the articles created on folk culture and gender. The theme of the contest includes, but is not limited to, women and queer personalities in folklore, folk culture (folk artists, folk dancers, folk singers, folk musicians, folk game athletes, women in mythology, women warriors in folklores, witches and witch hunting, fairytales and more). You can learn more about the scope and the prizes at the project page.

Best wishes,

Wiki Loves Women Team

--MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०९:५२, १९ जनवरी २०२० (UTC)

Train-the-Trainer 2020 Application open

Sorry for writing this message in English - feel free to help us translating it

Hello,

CIS-A2K is glad to announce Train the Trainer programme 2020 (TTT 2020) from 28 February - 1 March 2020. This is the 7th iteration of this programme. We are grateful to all the community members, resource persons for their consistent enthusiasm to participate and support. We expect this to continue as before.

What is TTT?
Train the Trainer or TTT is a residential training program. The program attempts to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. Earlier TTT has been conducted in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Who should apply?

• Any active Wikimedian from India, contributing to any Indic language Wikimedia project (including English) is eligible to apply.
• An editor with at least 800 edits on zero-namespace before 31 December 2019.
• Anyone who has the interest to conduct offline/real-life Wiki events and to train others.
• Anyone who has already participated in an earlier iteration of TTT, cannot apply.

Please learn more about this program and apply to participate or encourage the deserving candidates from your community to do so.

Thanks for your attention, --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १५:४६, २१ जनवरी २०२० (UTC)

Indic Wikisource Proofreadthon

Sorry for writing this message in English - feel free to help us translating it

Hello all,

As COVID-19 has forced the Wikimedia communities to stay at home and like many other affiliates, CIS-A2K has decided to suspend all offline activities till 15th September 2020 (or till further notice). I present to you for an online training session for future coming months. The CIS-A2K have conducted a Online Indic Wikisource Proofreadthon to enrich our Indian classic literature in digital format.

WHAT DO YOU NEED

• Booklist: a collection of books to be proofread. Kindly help us to find some classical literature your language. The book should not be available in any third party website with Unicode formatted text. Please collect the books and add our event page book list.

• Participants: Kindly sign your name at Participants section if you wish to participant this event.

• Reviewer: Kindly promote yourself as administrator/reviewer of this proofreadthon and add your proposal here. The administrator/reviewers could participate in this Proofreadthon.

• Some social media coverage: I would request to all Indic Wikisource community member, please spread the news to all social media channel, we always try to convince it your Wikipedia/Wikisource to use their SiteNotice. Of course, you must also use your own Wikisource site notice.

• Some awards: There may be some award/prize given by CIS-A2K.

• A way to count validated and proofread pages:Wikisource Contest Tools

• Time : Proofreadthon will run: from 01 May 2020 00.01 to 10 May 2020 23.59

• Rules and guidelines: The basic rules and guideline have described here

• Scoring: The details scoring method have described here

I really hope many Indic Wikisources will be present this year at-home lockdown.

Thanks for your attention
Jayanta (CIS-A2K)
Wikisource Advisor, CIS-A2K

[Small wiki toolkits – Indic workshop series 2020] Register now!

Greetings, hope this message finds you all in the best of your health, and you are staying safe amid the ongoing crisis.

Firstly, to give you context, Small wiki toolkits (SWT) is an initiative to support small wiki communities, to learn and share technical and semi-technical skills to support, maintain, and grow. We are happy to inform you that the SWT group has planned a series of four online workshops for Indic Wikimedia community members during June & July 2020. These workshops have been specifically designed and curated for Indic communities, based on a survey conducted early this year. The four workshops planned in this regard are;

• Understanding the technical challenges of Indic language wikis (by Birgit): Brainstorming about technical challenges faced by contributors to Indic language Wikimedia projects.
• Writing user scripts & gadgets (by Jayprakash12345): Basics to intermediate-level training on writing user scripts (Javascript and jQuery fundamentals are prerequisites).
• Using project management & bug reporting tool Phabricator (by Andre): Introduction to Phabricator, a tool used for project management and software bug reporting.
• Writing Wikidata queries (by Mahir256): Introduction to the Wikidata Query Service, from writing simple queries to constructing complex visualizations of structured data.

You can read more about these workshops at: SWT Indic Workshop Series 2020/Workshops -- exact dates and timings will be informed later to selected participants.

Registration is open until 24 May 2020, and you can register yourself by visiting this page! These workshops will be quite helpful for Indic communities to expand their technical bandwidth, and further iterations will be conducted based on the response to the current series. Looking forward to your participation! If you have any questions, please contact us on the talk page here. MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १७:३८, १६ मे २०२० (UTC)

GENTLE REMINDER: Project Tiger 2.0 - Feedback from writing contest editors and Hardware support recipients

Dear Wikimedians,

We hope this message finds you well.

We sincerely thank you for your participation in Project Tiger 2.0 and we want to inform you that almost all the processes such as prize distribution etc related to the contest have been completed now. As we indicated earlier, because of the ongoing pandemic, we were unsure and currently cannot conduct the on-ground community Project Tiger workshop.

We are at the last phase of this Project Tiger 2.0 and as a part of the online community consultation, we request you to spend some time to share your valuable feedback on the Project Tiger 2.0 writing contest feedback.

Please fill this form to share your feedback, suggestions or concerns so that we can improve the program further. The process of the writing contest will be ended on 20 July 2020.

Note: If you want to answer any of the descriptive questions in your native language, please feel free to do so.

The Writing Contest Jury Feedback form is going to close on 10 July 2020.

Thank you. Nitesh Gill (talk) 15:57, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Collections Now Available (September 2020)

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL owl says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing new free, full-access, accounts to reliable sources as part of our research access program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials on the Library Card platform:

• Al Manhal – Arabic journals and ebooks
• Ancestry.com – Genealogical and historical records
• RILM – Music encyclopedias

Many other partnerships are listed on our partners page, including Adam Matthew, EBSCO, Gale and JSTOR.

A significant portion of our collection now no longer requires individual applications to access! Read more in our recent blog post.

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects!
--The Wikipedia Library Team ०९:४९, ३ सेप्टेम्बर् २०२० (UTC)

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

Indic Wikisource Proofreadthon II and Central Notice

Sorry for writing this message in English - feel free to help us translating it

Hello Proofreader,

After successful first Online Indic Wikisource Proofreadthon hosted and organised by CIS-A2K in May 2020, again we are planning to conduct one more Indic Wikisource Proofreadthon II.I would request to you, please submit your opinion about the dates of contest and help us to fix the dates. Please vote for your choice below.

Click here to Submit Your Vote

Last date of submit of your vote on 24th September 2020, 11:59 PM

I really hope many Indic Wikisource proofreader will be present this time.

Please comment on CentralNotice banner proposal for Indic Wikisource Proofreadthon 2020 for the Indic Wikisource contest. (1 Oct2020 - 15 Oct, all IPs from India, Bangladesh, Srilanka, all project). Thank you.

Thanks for your attention
Jayanta (CIS-A2K)
Wikisource Advisor, CIS-A2K

Mahatma Gandhi edit-a-thon on 2 and 3 October 2020

Please feel free to translate the message.
Hello,
Hope this message finds you well. We want to inform you that CIS-A2K is going to organise a mini edit-a-thon for two days on 2 and 3 October 2020 during Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary. This is not related to a particular project rather participants can contribute to any Wikimedia project (such as Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Wikiquote). The topic of the edit-a-thon is: Mahatma Gandhi and his works and contribution. Please participate in this event. For more information and details please visit the event page here. Thank you. — User:Nitesh (CIS-A2K) Sent using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ११:२४, २८ सेप्टेम्बर् २०२० (UTC)

Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021

Please consider translating the message.

This event does not have a logo yet, you may help to create one.

Hello,

Hope this email finds you well. We want to inform you about Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021, an online wiki-event by A2K which is to be conducted from 19 – 21 February 2021 during the occasion of International Mother Language Day. Please see the event page here. also Please subscribe to the event-specific newsletter to get regular news and updates.

Get involved

1. Please help in creating a logo for the event.
2. This event has a "Request for Comments" portal, where we are seeking your opinion on different topics. Please consider sharing your expertise.
3. We need help to translate a few messages to different Indian languages. Could you help?

Happy Diwali. --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १२:४६, १४ नवेम्बर् २०२० (UTC)

WMWM 2021 Newsletter #1

Namaskar,

You are receiving this notification as you are one of the subscriber of Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 Newsletter. We are sharing with you the first newsletter featuring news, updates and plans related to the event. You can find our first issue here. If you do not want to receive this kind of notification further, you can remove yourself from here.

Sent through MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १७:५७, १ डिसेम्बर् २०२० (UTC)

Festive Season 2020 edit-a-thon on 5-6 December 2020

Festive Season 2020 edit-a-thon is on 5 – 6 December 2020

Namaskara/Hello,

Hope you are doing well. On 5–6 December, A2K will conduct a mini edit-a-thon on the theme Festivals of India. This edit-a-thon is not restricted to a particular project and editors can contribute to any Wikimedia project on the theme. Please have a look at the event page, and please participate. Some tasks have been suggested, please feel free to expand the list.

Regards. Sent using MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ११:२९, २ डिसेम्बर् २०२० (UTC)

Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 Newsletter #2

Hello,
The second edition of Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 newsletter has been published. We have started a logistics assessment. The objective of the survey is to collect relevant information about the logistics of the Indian Wikimedia community members who are willing to participate in the event. Please spend a few minutes to fill this form.

There are other stories. Please read the full newsletter here.

To subscribe or unsubscribe the newsletter, please visit this page. --MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०१:४०, १७ डिसेम्बर् २०२० (UTC)

Submission Open for Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021

Sorry for writing this message in English - feel free to help us translating it

Hello,

We are excited to announce that submission for session proposals has been opened for Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021, the upcoming online wiki-event which is to be conducted from 19 – 21 February 2021 during the occasion of International Mother Language Day. The submission will remain open until 24 January 2021.

You can submit your session proposals here -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions
Click here to Submit Your session proposals

A program team has been formed recently from highly experienced Wikimedia volunteers within and outside India. It is currently under the process of expansion to include more diversity in the team. The team will evaluate the submissions, accept, modify or reject them, design and finalise the program schedule by the end of January 2021. Details about the team will come soon.

We are sure that you will share some of your most inspiring stories and conduct some really exciting sessions during the event. Best of luck for your submissions!

Regards,
Jayanta
On behalf of WMWM India 2021

Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 Newsletter #3

Hello,
Happy New Year! The third edition of Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 newsletter has been published. We have opened proposals for session submissions. If you want to conduct a session during the event, you can propose it here before 24 Jamuary 2021.

There are other stories. Please read the full newsletter here.

To subscribe or unsubscribe the newsletter, please visit this page. -- MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) ०८:५६, १ जनवरी २०२१ (UTC)

Wikipedia 20th anniversary celebration edit-a-thon

Dear all,

We hope you are doing well. As you know, CIS-A2K is running a series of mini edit-a-thons. Two mini edit-a-thons has been completed successfully with your participation. On 15 January 2021, Wikipedia has its 20th birthday and we are celebrating this occasion by creating or developing articles regarding encyclopedias including Wikipedia. It has started today (9 January 2021) and will run till tomorrow (10 January 2021). We are requesting you to take part in it and provide some of your time. For more information, you can visit here. Happy editing. Thank you Nitesh (CIS-A2K) (talk) 07:54, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 Newsletter #4

Hello,
Happy New Year! The fourth edition of Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 newsletter has been published. We have opened the registration for participation for this event. If you want to participate in the event, you can register yourself here before 16 February 2021.

There are other stories. Please read the full newsletter here.

To subscribe or unsubscribe the newsletter, please visit this page.MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १६:१२, १७ जनवरी २०२१ (UTC)

[Small wiki toolkits] Understanding the technical challenges

Greetings, hope this message finds you all in the best of your health, and you are staying safe amid the ongoing crisis.

Firstly, to give you context, Small wiki toolkits (SWT) is an initiative to support small wiki communities, to learn and share technical and semi-technical skills to support, maintain, and grow. In India, a series of workshops were conducted last year, and they received good response. They are being continued this year, and the first session is: Understanding the technical challenges of wikis (by Birgit): Brainstorming about technical challenges faced by contributors contributing to language projects related to South Asia. The session is on 24 January 2021, at 18:00 to 19:30 (India time), 18:15 to 19:45 (Nepal time), and 18:30 to 20:00 pm (Bangladesh time).

You can register yourself by visiting this page! This discussion will be crucial to decide topics for future workshops. Community members are also welcome to suggest topics for future workshops anytime at https://w.wiki/t8Q. If you have any questions, please contact us on the talk page here. MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १६:३९, १९ जनवरी २०२१ (UTC)

[Small wiki toolkits] Upcoming bots workshops: Understanding community needs

Greetings, as you may be aware that as part of Small wiki toolkits - South Asia, we conduct a workshop every month on technical topics to help small wikis. In February, we are planning on organizing a workshop on the topic of bots. Bots are automated tools that carry out repetitive, tedious and mundane tasks. To help us structure the workshop, we would like understand the needs of the community in this regard. Please let us know any of

• a) repetitive/mundane tasks that you generally do, especially for maintenance
• b) tasks you think can be automated on your wiki.

Please let us your inputs on workshops talk page, before 7 February 2021. You can also let me know your inputs by emailing me or pinging me here in this section. Please note that you do not need to have any programming knowledge for this workshop or to give input. Regards, KCVelaga १३:४५, २८ जनवरी २०२१ (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Collections Available Now (February 2021)

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL owl says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing new free, full-access, accounts to reliable sources as part of our research access program. You can sign up to access research materials on the Library Card platform:

• Taxmann – Taxation and law database
• PNAS – Official journal of the National Academy of Sciences
• EBSCO – New Arabic and Spanish language databases added

We have a wide array of other collections available, and a significant number now no longer require individual applications to access! Read more in our blog post.

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects!

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

--१२:५७, १ फेब्रवरी २०२१ (UTC)

Call for feedback: WMF Community Board seats & Office hours tomorrow

(sorry for posting in English)

Dear Wikimedians,

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is organizing a call for feedback about community selection processes between February 1 and March 14. Below you will find the problem statement and various ideas from the Board to address it. We are offering multiple channels for questions and feedback. With the help of a team of community facilitators, we are organizing multiple conversations with multiple groups in multiple languages.

During this call for feedback we publish weekly reports and we draft the final report that will be delivered to the Board. With the help of this report, the Board will approve the next steps to organize the selection of six community seats in the upcoming months. Three of these seats are due for renewal and three are new, recently approved.

Participate in this call for feedback and help us form a more diverse and better performing Board of Trustees!

Problems: While the Wikimedia Foundation and the movement have grown about five times in the past ten years, the Board’s structure and processes have remained basically the same. As the Board is designed today, we have a problem of capacity, performance, and lack of representation of the movement’s diversity. This problem was identified in the Board’s 2019 governance review, along with recommendations for how to address it.

To solve the problem of capacity, we have agreed to increase the Board size to a maximum of 16 trustees (it was 10). Regarding performance and diversity, we have approved criteria to evaluate new Board candidates. What is missing is a process to promote community candidates that represent the diversity of our movement and have the skills and experience to perform well on the Board of a complex global organization.

Our current processes to select individual volunteer and affiliate seats have some limitations. Direct elections tend to favor candidates from the leading language communities, regardless of how relevant their skills and experience might be in serving as a Board member, or contributing to the ability of the Board to perform its specific responsibilities. It is also a fact that the current processes have favored volunteers from North America and Western Europe. Meanwhile, our movement has grown larger and more complex, our technical and strategic needs have increased, and we have new and more difficult policy challenges around the globe. As well, our Movement Strategy recommendations urge us to increase our diversity and promote perspectives from other regions and other social backgrounds.

In the upcoming months, we need to renew three community seats and appoint three more community members in the new seats. What process can we all design to promote and choose candidates that represent our movement and are prepared with the experience, skills, and insight to perform as trustees?

Ideas: The Board has discussed several ideas to overcome the problems mentioned above. Some of these ideas could be taken and combined, and some discarded. Other ideas coming from the call for feedback could be considered as well. The ideas are:

• Ranked voting system. Complete the move to a single transferable vote system, already used to appoint affiliate-selected seats, which is designed to best capture voters’ preferences.
• Quotas. Explore the possibility of introducing quotas to ensure certain types of diversity in the Board (details about these quotas to be discussed in this call for feedback).
• Call for types of skills and experiences. When the Board makes a new call for candidates, they would specify types of skills and experiences especially sought.
• Vetting of candidates. Potential candidates would be assessed using the Trustee Evaluation Form and would be confirmed or not as eligible candidates.
• Board-delegated selection committee. The community would nominate candidates that this committee would assess and rank using the Trustee Evaluation Form. This committee would have community elected members and Board appointed members.
• Community-elected selection committee. The community would directly elect the committee members. The committee would assess and rank candidates using the Trustee Evaluation Form.
• Election of confirmed candidates. The community would vote for community nominated candidates that have been assessed and ranked using the Trustee Evaluation Form. The Board would appoint the most voted candidates.
• Direct appointment of confirmed candidates. After the selection committee produces a ranked list of community nominated candidates, the Board would appoint the top-ranked candidates directly.

Call for feedback: The call for feedback runs from February 1 until the end of March 14. We are looking for a broad representation of opinions. We are interested in the reasoning and the feelings behind your opinions. In a conversation like this one, details are important. We want to support good conversations where everyone can share and learn from others. We want to hear from those who understand Wikimedia governance well and are already active in movement conversations. We also want to hear from people who do not usually contribute to discussions. Especially those who are active in their own roles, topics, languages or regions, but usually not in, say, a call for feedback on Meta.

You can participate by joining the Telegram chat group, and giving feedback on any of the talk pages on Meta-Wiki. We are welcoming the organisation of conversations in any language and in any channel. If you want us to organize a conversation or a meeting for your wiki project or your affiliate, please write to me. I will also reach out to communities and affiliates to soon have focused group discussions.

An office hour is also happening tomorrow at 12 pm (UTC) to discuss this topic. Access link will be available 15 minutes before the scheduled time (please watch the office hour page for the link, and I will also share on mailing lists). In case you are not able to make it, please don't worry, there will be more discussions and meetings in the next few weeks.

Regards, KCVelaga (WMF) १६:३१, १ फेब्रवरी २०२१ (UTC)

Research Needs Assessment for Indian Language Wikimedia (ILW) Projects

Dear All,

The Access to Knowledge (A2K) team at CIS has been engaged with work on research on Indian language Wikimedia projects as part of the APG since 2019. This year, following up on our learnings from work so far, we are undertaking a needs assessment exercise to understand a) the awareness about research within Indian language Wikimedia communities, and identify existing projects if any, and b) to gather community inputs on knowledge gaps and priority areas of focus, and the role of research in addressing the same.

We would therefore request interested community members to respond to the needs assessment questionnaire here:
Click here to respond

Please respond in any Indian language as suitable. The deadline for this exercise is February 20, 2021. For any queries do write to us on the CIS-A2K research talk page here MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १७:०८, ३ फेब्रवरी २०२१ (UTC)

Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 Newsletter #5

Hello,
Greetings!! The fifth edition of Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 newsletter has been published. We have opened the registration for participation for this event. If you want to participate in the event, you can register yourself here before 16 February 2021.

There are other stories. Please read the full newsletter here.

To subscribe or unsubscribe the newsletter, please visit this page.
MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १७:४९, ३ फेब्रवरी २०२१ (UTC)

Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 Newsletter #5

Hello,
Greetings!! The fifth edition of Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 newsletter has been published. We have opened the registration for participation for this event. If you want to participate in the event, you can register yourself here before 16 February 2021.

There are other stories. Please read the full newsletter here.

To subscribe or unsubscribe the newsletter, please visit this page.
MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १७:५३, ३ फेब्रवरी २०२१ (UTC)

[Small wiki toolkits] Bot workshop: 27 February

As part of the Small wiki toolkits (South Asia) initiative, we are happy to announce the second workshop of this year. The workshop will be on "bots", and we will be learning how to perform tasks on wiki by running automated scripts, about Pywikibot and how it can be used to help with repetitive processes and editing, and the Pywikibot community, learning resources and community venues. Please note that you do not need any technical experience to attend the workshop, only some experience contributing to Wikimedia projects is enough.

Details of the workshop are as follows:

• Date: 27 February
• Timings: 15:30 to 17:00 (IST), 15:45 to 17:15 (NPT), 16:00 to 17:30 (BDT)
• Meeting link: https://meet.google.com/vri-zvfv-rci | click to add your Google Calendar.
• Trainer: Joaquin Oltra Hernandez

Please sign-up on the registration page at https://w.wiki/yYg.

Note: We are providing modest internet stipends to attend the workshops, for those who need and wouldn't otherwise be able to attend. More information on this can be found on the registration page.

Regards, Small wiki toolkits - South Asia organizers, १०:११, १८ फेब्रवरी २०२१ (UTC)

CIS-A2K Newsletter February 2021

Hello,
CIS-A2K has published their newsletter for the month of February 2021. The edition includes details about these topics:

• Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021
• Online Meeting with Punjabi Wikimedians
• Marathi Language Day
• Wikisource Audiobooks workshop
• 2021-22 Proposal Needs Assessment
• CIS-A2K Team changes
• Research Needs Assessment
• Gender gap case study
• International Mother Language Day

Please read the complete newsletter here.
If you want to subscribe/unsubscribe this newsletter, click here.

MediaWiki message delivery (चर्चा) १७:२४, ८ मार्च् २०२१ (UTC)

WMF Community Board seats: Upcoming panel discussions

As a result of the first three weeks of the call for feedback on WMF Community Board seats, three topics turned out to be the focus of the discussion. Additionally, a new idea has been introduced by a community member recently: Candidates resources. We would like to pursue these focus topics and the new idea appropriately, discussing them in depth and collecting new ideas and fresh approaches by running four panels in the next week. Every panel includes four members from the movement covering many regions, backgrounds and experiences, along with a trustee of the Board. Every panel will last 45 minutes, followed by a 45-minute open mic discussion, where everyone’s free to ask questions or to contribute to the further development of the panel's topics.

• Skills for Board work - Friday, March 12, 18:00 UTC
• Support for candidates - Saturday, March 13, 13:30 UTC
• Board - Global Council - Hubs - Saturday, March 13, 16:00 UTC
• Regional diversity - Sunday, March 14, 13:00 UTC

To counter spamming, the meeting link will be updated on the Meta-Wiki pages and also on the Telegram announcements channel, 15 minutes before the official start.

Let me know if you have any questions, KCVelaga (WMF), ०८:३६, १० मार्च् २०२१ (UTC)

[Small wiki toolkits] Workshop on "Debugging/fixing template errors" - 27 March

As part of the Small wiki toolkits (South Asia) initiative, we are happy to announce the third workshop of this year. The workshop will be on "Debugging/fixing template errors", and we will learn how to address the common template errors on wikis (related but not limited to importing templates, translating them, Lua, etc.).

Details of the workshop are as follows:

• Date: 27 March
• Timings: 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm (IST), 15:45 to 17:15 (NPT), 16:00 to 17:30 (BST)
• Meeting link: https://meet.google.com/cyo-mnrd-ryj | click here to add this to your Google Calendar.
• Trainer: Jay Prakash

Please sign-up on the registration page at https://w.wiki/36Sg.

prepare for the workshop in advance, we would like to gather all kinds of template errors (related but not limited to importing templates, translating them, Lua, etc.) that you face while working with templates on your wiki. If you plan to attend the workshop and would like your common issues related to dealing with templates addressed, share your issues using this Google Form, or under this section on the workshop's talk page. You can see examples of such errors at this category.

Note: We are providing modest internet stipends to attend the workshops, for those who need and wouldn't otherwise be able to attend. More information on this can be found on the registration page.

Regards, Small wiki toolkits - South Asia organizers, ०७:०१, १६ मार्च् २०२१ (UTC)