West Bengal Wikimedians/Reports/Annual Activities/2017

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Bengali Wikisource 10th Anniversary Proofreading Contest

West Bengal Wikimedians User Group was recognized as a Wikimedia User Group on February 16, 2017 and immediately after its recognition, it got involved into action with the Bengali Wikisource community who were celebrating the 10th Anniverary of their project with a 7-month long proofreading contest from January 1 to July 31, 2017. The contest was thoroughly planned, 54 Public Domain Bengali books were selected for the participants to proofread, Officials of CIS-A2K and Wikimedia Bangladesh chapter were requested to deal with distributing prizes to the winners and Wikimedians with technical expertise from different communities were approached to build a user-friendly statistics generation tool for the contest. 54 people enrolled for the project, among them more than 90% participants were completely new to the project and 34 of them actually proofread for the contest. A SQL Quarry, developed by Malayalam Wikimedian Viswaprabha along with Prachatos Mitra's modified version of a previously built tool by Italian Wikimedian CristianCantoro, were used simultaneously to retrieve and refine the result of the contest. The necessary informations of the winners of the contest were collected and sent to CIS-A2K and Wikimedia Bangladesh representatives to distribute the prizes.

Wiki Loves Butterfly

Wiki Loves Butterfly (WLB) is an ongoing WMF-funded project led by Bengali Wikimedian Ananya Mondal and a team of dedicated volunteers and lepidopterists from West Bengal. After the successful completion of the first phase, the project is now in its second phase ,which will end in March 28, 2018. Apart from photo-documenting and identifying live butterflies in the wild in different hotspots of West Bengal to the sub-species level with an extremely perfectionist attitude, the team members were actively involved in uploading the images to Commons, creating Wikipedia and Wikispecies articles, creating items or adding statements in Wikidata, organizing edit-a-thons and photo-walks and engaging experts in this field. The user group has always tried to support and promote this project both online and offline, by providing new ideas, informing about necessary tools, creating new external identifier property (Indian Foundation for Butterflies ID) in Wikidata, generating outcome data and adding the entire dataset in Mix'n'match tool, requesting WMF bloggers to post about the project etc.

• Blog report - The metamorphosis of Wiki Loves Butterfly by Ed Erhart, Wikimedia Foundation, July 10th, 2017.

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The Netherlands and the world - Chinsurah

West Bengal Wikimedians User Group collaborated with Wikimedia Netherlands chapter in their The Netherlands and the world project to document Dutch colonial heritage in Chinsurah, West Bengal. The volunteers of the user group photo-documented the Dutch Memorial monument of Susanna Anna Maria and all graves at Dutch cemetery of Chinsurah for 3 days and uploaded nearly 1600 images to Commons. All the graves were photographed, Wikidata entries were created for all identified persons buried in the Dutch cemeteries including addition of Find a Grave memorial ID external identifier property, their graves were geolocated, genealogy of some of the buried persons were explored and books related to Dutch Bengal were uploaded for English, Bengali and Dutch Wikisource. A new external identifier property (Dutch Cemetery in Chinsurah person ID) was created in Wikidata and the entire dataset was added in Mix'n'match tool.

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Documenting Brahmo Samaj Cemetery-Nabodebalay

This was a project planned by Wikimedian Indrajit Das to document the Brahmo religion cemetery of Nabodebalay, a lesser-known place located in Kolkata, where famous Brahmo reformer Keshub Chunder Sen along with some of his family members were buried. Four volunteers participated in this project on May 13, 2017, photo-documented and geotagged all the graves inside the cemetery, uploaded more than 250 photographs to Commons, and created Wikidata items.

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Strategy Meetup - Cycle 3

Volunteers of West Bengal Wikimedians User Group came together on August 6, 2017 in Kolkata to discuss about Wikimedia movement strategy. The volunteers discussed extensively about three challenges i.e. western encyclopedia not being standard and adequate reference system, capturing sum of knowledge not being verifiable in traditional way and combating fake news.

Wikipedia Commons Orientation Workshop with Framebondi

Wikipedia Commons Orientation Workshop with Framebondi was a one-day orientation program intended for amateur photographers and writers of Kolkata, which was held on August 26, 2017 at Academy of Fine Arts. Wikimedian Indrajit Das planned this event in collaboration with a Kolkata based amateur photographer group named Framebondi, which sponsored the event. The aim of the event was to get new Wikimedia Commons contributors and Wikipedia editors.

Wikidata workshop, Kolkata

West Bengal Wikimedians User Group organized the first ever Wikidata workshop in Kolkata on September 16 and 17, 2017. Asaf Bartov, Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities, Wikimedia Foundation was requested to conduct the event in Kolkata and other Indic communities subsequently joined hands to organize the workshop in their states. We are extremely thankful to Asaf as he came all the way to India from opposite side of the planet to keep our request and travel in different parts of the country following a tiring and hectic schedule. We are also grateful to CIS-A2K for handling the hotel reservation of Asaf and approaching West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences authority to provide venue for the Kolkata workshop. The details of the discussion of the workshop is in this Etherpad link.

Wikipedia Takes Kolkata VII

Wikipedia Takes Kolkata VII (WTK VII) was the seventh edition of the one-day photo scavenger hunt Wikipedia Takes Kolkata event which is held almost every year in the city of Kolkata. Planned by Wikimedian Sumitsurai, WTK VII happened in and around the Burrabuzar area of Kolkata on November 12, 2017 with 9 participants, covering 14 heritage destinations. Prominent places visited included Nakhoda Masjid, Hafiz Jamaluddin Masjid, Gurudwara Bara Sikh Sangat, Barabazar Jain Temple, Jain Swatembar Panchayati Temple, Shree Digambar Jain Bada Mandir, Vaikunthnath Temple, Jorasanko Rajbari, Ghoriwala Mallick Bari, Lohia Matri Sadan and Oriental Seminary School. 220 images have been uploaded to Commons till now. Wikipedia articles and Wikidata items will be created soon. The user group supported the event by reimbursing the expenditure.

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Wiki Explores Purulia - Phase I

Wiki Explores Purulia - Phase I was the fist attempt by the user group to document the areas systematically outside Kolkata. Although having a rich historical and cultural heritage of thousands of years, Purulia district is negligibly represented in different Wikimedia projects. The district of Purulia was prioritized for this project as the historical places and archaeological sites are extremely neglected by the concerned authority and some of them are already destroyed or in the verge of obliteration. Wikimedians cum travel-writers Sumit Surai, Amitabha Gupta and Rangan Datta, joined by a terracotta enthusiast Suvadip Sanyal, a new potential contributor, started the project on November 17, 2017 and after traveling 675 kilometers in 4 days, covered 22 archaeological sites of the district and uploaded more than 400 images to Commons till date and more to come. Wikidata items and Wikipedia articles will be created soon. The user group supported the project by providing funds, helping the new user by showing the way to contribute in Wikimedia, categorizing the images and in other ways.

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Bengali Wikisource 10th Anniversary Celebration workshop

West Bengal Wikimedians User Group celebrated the 10th Anniversary of Bengali Wikisource on December 10, 2017 at West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. The event started with honoring Dr. Hrishikes Sen, a prolific Wikisource editor and administrator of English and Bengali Wikisource. He conducted a detailed workshop on basics of proofreading books in Wikisource and discussed thoroughly about copyright laws and issues. Satdeep Gill, Community Outreach Coordinator (India), Wikimedia Foundation also attended the event and delivered a short presentation on how to increase readers for Bengali Wikisource. The user group is planning to work on some of the ideas which came up during the following discussion. The event ended with a cake-cutting celebration.

Wikipedia Takes Kolkata VIII

Wikipedia Takes Kolkata VIII (WTK VIII) was the eighth edition of the one-day photo scavenger hunt Wikipedia Takes Kolkata event which is held almost every year in the city of Kolkata. This was the first time that the photo scavenger hunt was done for the third time in one year. Planned by Wikimedian Amitabha Gupta, WTK VIII happened in the Beleghata area of Kolkata on December 17, 2017 with 10 participants, covering 8 heritage destinations. Prominent places visited included Jewish Cemetery, Greek Cemetery, House of Prominent families like Naskar family, Sarkar family and of Rajendralal Mitra, Hyderi Manzil, Roman Catholic Cemetery and the gateway of Commercial Tax Building at 14 Beliaghata Road which was earlier owned by Maharaja of Vizianagaram. 192 images has been uploaded to Commons. Wikipedia articles and Wikidata items will be created soon. The user group supported the event by reimbursing the expenditure.

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Wiki Explores Bankura - Phase I

Wiki Explores Bankura - Phase I was a four-day event to document the archaeological and historical sites of Bishnupur subdivision situated in the district of Bankura in West Bengal, planned and executed solely by Suvadip Sanyal. He covered 16 historical places in this area, most of which are under-represented in Wikimedia sites and uploaded more than 1600 images of temples, statues and terracotta relief works etc. till now. More images will be uploaded, Wikidata items and Wikipedia articles will be created soon. West Bengal Wikimedians User Group provided him with necessary funds, informed him about uploading tools, created proper categories for the images and helped in other ways.

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Wiki Explores Birbhum - Phase I

Wiki Explores Birbhum - Phase I was a two-day event to document the historical sites of western Birbhum district of West Bengal, planned and executed solely by Suvadip Sanyal. He covered 8 historical places in this area, most of which are under-represented in Wikimedia sites and uploaded more than 400 images of temples, statues and terracotta relief works etc. till now. More images will be uploaded, Wikidata items and Wikipedia articles will be created soon. West Bengal Wikimedians User Group provided him with necessary funds, created proper categories for the images and helped in other ways.

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