WikiConference India 2011/Submissions/ rural wiki

Timestamp: 10:25, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Title of the submission

Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, or presentation)

Author of the submission

E-mail address or username (if username, please confirm email address in Special:Preferences)

<mailtogautamprateek@gmail.com>

State of your origin (Country, if you are not based in India)

<Allahabad, India>

Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)

<No>

Personal homepage or blog

Abstract (maximum 500 words)

<We propose a rural Wikipedia which would be a platform for information from rural India. The information should be of the rural people, by the rural people and from the rural people. The idea emanates, not surprisingly, due to the marginalization of issues pertaining to rural India in the knowledge revolution. Our objective would be to make the rural India a producer as well the consumer of information.

A recently concluded research study on English and Hindi dailies finds that they devote only about 2% of their total coverage to rural India’s issues, crises and anxieties. Even then, the main concerns related to land, livestock, resources, farming etc, in rural areas is evidently neglected.

Hence we propose “ruralnews” and “ruralversity” on the lines of wikinews and wikiversity.

1) “ruralnews”

1.1) Content would be sourced from volunteers in rural areas beginning with volunteers at block level. The sources of information could be volunteers own exploration and research on relevant issues at each village, news from non-governmental and civil society organizations, local reporters of print and electronic media and other sources. Volunteers at the level of each block to provide relevant news from all the villages under the block.This means we plan to have dedicated pages district wise for rural news and administrator rights to editors at the district level. The core areas of concern would be agriculture and allied sector, health, environment, public policy, innovations, weather related information and also the prevailing prices of agricultural commodities. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

2) “ruralversity”

2.1) Educational content: Campus based volunteers would source static content in the form of course material, articles, research papers, books etc, from various rural management, rural development, agri-business management, development studies related institutions. Also, relevant materials from public agencies like National and State Institutes of Rural development. This could be a centralised system where all the pooled content would be put in relevant sections at a central location. Due translation and vernacularization could be done centrally.

2.2) Informational content: The core areas could be cultural aspects, bio-diversity and innovation. A lot of folklore viz. stories, traditions, songs, dance forms etc need to be put across expressing the diversity of rural India. About bio-diversity, the exercise needs to be taken to the level of villages wherein the volunteers at each village would collect and catalogue the flora and fauna of the region and this aggregated at the block and district level would have dedicated pages for each section. The Agricultural Universities would be requested to put the "package of practices" in the open source public domains. The best practices in agriculture and animal husbandry need to be put in this section. Overall, it makes sense to include the 65% of India living in rural areas to have a stake in the informational revolution weaved by the creation of open source platforms through information and communication technologies.>

Track (Community/Knowledge/Outreach/Technology)

Will you attend Wikiconference if your submission is not accepted?

<Yes>

Slides or further information (optional)