Grants talk:PEG/Titodutta/Swami Vivekananda Encyclopedia

Comments MADe

Hey Tito, interesting grant proposal. I immediatly checked out Mr. Vivekananda and read his article.

The proposal seems quite strong in continuing the work that happened on WikiProject Swami Vivekananda. You tell us you have good experiences with this project. So I'm a bit surprised you want to set up a different wiki to continue this work. Firstly, it might be a waste of talent (writing things twice), and secondly, how can Wikipedia benefit from this? Is there a possibility to keep everything central on Wikipedia, this might really help this specific grant request MADe (talk) 19:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

• Hello, I am trying to answer this question. There is/was not any complete knowledge bank in the entire world wide web. And trust me, in last 1 and a half year we have made the Wikipedia portal the BEST in the entire world wide web (you may check it yourself). But, Wikipedia is Wikipedia — not an encyclopedia on Swami Vivekananda — we need to write a huge number of articles on Swami Vivekananda (last months I calculated and it was 2500 or so articles) — we can not write everything in Wikipedia. I am providing few examples—

Article/Topic	In Wikipedia	In Swami Vivekananda encyclopedia
Events of his life by year	The main article does the work	In scope, might be a very good document
Letter written by Swami Vivekananda to Alasinga Perumal in August 1893	No idea	Very important letter, in scope
100+ articles from this list wikipedia:Bibliography of Swami Vivekananda	Most of these articles will never be needed/written	In scope
Off Wiki philanthropic activities Providing support and other help to poor and needy people. Vivekananda himself spent all his life for the welfare of poor people and when we are working on Swami Vivekananda portal and his works, if possible we should try to work here too.	Not possible	In scope Note, I have not asked anything for these works. If the encyclopedia becomes successful, hopefully we'll find the path ourselves.

Such an encyclopedia might be very helpful for the world wide web. This encyclopedia may give us a base to work in a much better way. Anyway, that is the dream so far. Thank you. Tito☸Dutta 20:58, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

• I have been thinking on it for last 12 hours or so. If needed I may create a large website on Swami Vivekananda and his universe and work only on those sections where we can not work on Wikipedia. I may also make it clear in the site that it is "an extension of WikiProject Swami Vivekananda". --Tito☸Dutta 04:21, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Well - actually you can put letters and other source texts to Wikisource - no problem with it, if the works are in PD Polimerek (talk) 10:28, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Comments ZeaForUs

Making a separate encyclopedia about one person is like inventing thousands of new wheels. Imagine a Dutchman making a similar request for Erasmus, an Italian colleague about Leonardo and so forth. In the end we might have myriads of tiny encyclopediae all about one person in history. BTW why he and not e.g. the entire Gandhi family, Mother Theresa of Calcutta or other celebrities who were very important in or from India?  Klaas|Z4␟V:  09:04, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Notes by NLIGuy

Dear Titodutta,

Thank you for submitting this interesting proposal. I must say I agree with my peers above, "Wikipedia is wikipedia" is not reason enough to accomplish something that, ultimately, does not stand in line with Wikipedia's goals and competes with what you achieved so far (which is very impressive, by the way). Educating people can be achieved by providing more articles (or enriching existing ones) on Wikipedia. As for Off Wiki philanthropic activities, which you "hope to achieve", I will remark that it doesn't align with WMF goals, and as it is the "ultimate goal" for the encyclopedia, I would advise to turn down your proposal.

Moreover, I think that since you intend to ask for more funding in the future, it is good form to at least indicate how much and for what purposes.

I'm sorry if this seems harsh - believe me, I've thought a lot before submitting my feedback.

NLIGuy (talk) 09:27, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Withdraw

Withdrawing. Will it possible to help WikiProject Swami Vivekananda? Some resources and a scanner? Below is the reply post I was preparing, the post is incomplete, but I finished that part where I mentioned the needs of the WikiProject.

The post I was preparing (incomplete)
WikiProject Swami Vivekananda (and most other WikiProjects) continuously face serious lack of source issues. So far I have bought books, myself. Here I made a list of needed books. The actual list is much longer. I contacted few organizations and publications for providing us subsidized or free books and/or support. Most of them asked two things— a) we must have a registered organization for our project Swami Vivekananda b) application in a stamp letter from the organization. I contacted many other websites, organizations for content, images etc (not only for WikiProject Swami Vivekananda, but every Indian project where I have worked, the worst case is Bengali language films portal, there is simply nothing, I have sent mail and contacted many websites) — but no one replies (specially when we write from @gmail.com or @yahoo.com id and mention)— I provided a suggestion at Wikipedia Village Pump Proposal— include content request into OTRS — we'll tell our needs to the OTRS team, they will contact them from their OTRS id. Few editors discussed and encouraged that, but nothing has happened still and it might be increase pressure on the OTRS team. I joined Wikipedia Library to work in India related subjects, but I know, not digital, we need actual library. Wikimedia has partnered with Jstor, HighBeam, Questia (or they are just helping us by providing free access). What I have suggested already and wish to take forward in next 1—2 years if needed — partnership with libraries for providing us 100 or so free/low fees membership. Currently I have kept two institutes in mind— American Institute Library, British Institute library — keeping their presence in many cities in India/many countries in the world. But these are large projects and not going to happen at this moment. Back to WikiProject Swami Vivekananda — other than huge lack of resources there are other issues. I have a huge number of old photographs and documents which I want to upload at Commons and I also want to create the Bengali Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. We have the Engllish one, but not the original Bengali version. It might be very

Tito☸Dutta 21:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Tito. I would be happy to look into how we might be able to help support this digitization effort. I suggest you start drafting something in the IdeaLab, focusing on the digitization aspects. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:50, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Notes by Polimerek

Actually, you can place your wiki for free on any wikifarm (Wikia for example), so there is no need to buy/borrow a separate server for a single wiki. The source texts and source scans you can easily put to Wikisource and Wikimedia Commons if there is no problem with copyright issues. I could accept the operational part of the grant - I mean collecting resources etc. - if this source material would be put to Wikisource/Wikimedia Commons... Polimerek (talk) 10:34, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Evaluation by the GAC

GAC Members who oppose this grant request

1. NLIGuy (talk) 09:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC) see my notes above.
2.  Klaas|Z4␟V:  12:42, 8 November 2013 (UTC) I don't see added value
3. --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 20:14, 8 November 2013 (UTC) I can just agree with the notes above, no need to add my own statement (same content, other words).