Himalayan workshop

Wikipedia and the knowledge commons: A workshop in the mountains

Himal Kalasutra-2016

For a report of this past event please see Grants:TPS/Shyamal/Himalayan_workshop/Report

• 16th to 21st May 2016
• The central Himalayan town of Munsiyari, Uttarakhand, India Coordinates: 30.079382°, 80.231860°

A view of Munsiyari town

Call for participation of Wiki[p|m]edians - participants will need to confirm before mid-February 2016 for logistic planning purposes. Please contact lshyamal@gmail.com for any queries. Experienced Wikipedian participants will be experiencing life in the Himalayas, living with the local people; exploring the region; and handling workshops for the local community.

• IMPORTANT NOTE: Trains between Delhi and Kathgodam around the week of 14th May are already getting filled up. ANY INTERESTED PARTICIPANTS PLEASE HURRY!

Location and background

The Panchachulis will be the backdrop for the sessions

The village of Sarmoli lies above the town of Munsiari in the district of Pithoragarh in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in India. The village receives its water supplies from Mesar Kund, a pond nestled in an oak forest. Each year the residents of the villages located on the slopes below it celebrate a 2 week long summer festival that culminates in the Mesar Forest Festival/ Mela. This local community-organized festival called Himal Kalasutra has had various themes and this year a key theme is on digital resources and literacy. Uttarakhand has a long history of strong traditions in the management of common resources, indeed it is among the places that greatly influenced Elinor Ostrom’s studies on the Commons. The local forest resources are managed as commons by the people through the Van Panchayats. Himal Prakriti is a local grassroots organization that has worked on mountain livelihoods and ecological sustainability since 2006 and would like to work on improving access to the digital commons and enable greater local participation in modern ways of knowledge sharing. The use of internet resources such as Wikipedia, Open Street Map and other participatory knowledge sharing systems would be of interest to the local community and Himal Prakriti would like to work with volunteers to help spread knowledge and increase local participation with these projects.

News report on the 2014 festival

Wikipedian participation

The Gori River flows beside Munsiyari

As Wikipedians with some interest in the Himalayan region- en:User:Shyamal and User:Bodhisattwa will be volunteering with Himal Prakriti to demonstrate the uses of Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons to the local community through a series of workshops, photography, research and writing sessions. We will be looking and learning about the landscape, people, culture, fauna, flora and throughout the period and looking out for ways in which we can contribute to Wikipedia and its sister projects. We welcome other Wikipedians to join for this period.

See commons:category:Munsiyari for some images including lo-res ones taken by Shyamal in 2008

Infrastructure and logistics

Himal Prakriti will be able to provide help and local assistance for the participants. Participants would be accommodated in village homestays which will provide an opportunity to immerse oneself in the local culture. The homestays are well organized to provide warm bed, toilet and good local food. The costs are modest and directly benefit the local economy.

Details of homestay

Mountain sounds

During your stay in a family home, you will have the privacy of your space with a room to yourself and you get to experience the quiet and unobtrusive care of the host family. All homes have comfortable rooms with a view, clean fresh linen and duvets, and attached western bathrooms with hot running water. The family serves two freshly cooked hot vegetarian meals of the local cuisine and gives you a packed lunch so you can be free to follow your own rhythm through the day. The tariff is inclusive of stay and 3 meals and ranges from Rs.800/person/day for budget travelers with more than 2 persons to a room and 1250/person/day on a twin sharing basis. We have a few rooms which are better appointed with large picture windows and the tariff is Rs.1500/person/day.

An old news item on this scheme

Getting there

Travel to Munsiari involves a train to Haldwani (typically from New Delhi) and then a shared Jeep drive (a little more than 10 hours and costing about Rs 500 per person) during the day (night travel is not possible due to the dangers of the terrain). The jeeps to Munsiyari start from Haldwani and start between 6 and 7 AM (and no later). An SUV (usually a Toyoto Innova) would cost Rs 9000 for 6 passengers.

Participant requirements

Some of our sessions will be held here (oops there are no power points there!)

Participants would need to note that the terrain is challenging and requires a certain level of fitness. Participants would also need to ensure that they follow and respect local traditions. Participants from multiple languages and those with skills/training (for example in geology, botany, zoology, geography, anthropology etc.) that help in better interpretation of the region and its culture are especially encouraged to participate. Participants will need to be able to spend the full period of the program. Participants should come prepared with neccessary equipment - laptops, preferably with good battery life; cameras and other documentation tools of choice.

Internet connectivity

There would be BSNL broadband and wifi, 2G data services would be available through BSNL, Airtel and Vodafone, while Idea provides 3G services which has partial coverage.

Dates and venue

16 to 21 May 2016. Participants should plan to arrive by the evening of the 15th at Munsiari. If all participants can start off on the morning of the 15th, a jeep, mini bus or innova, could be organized solely for the group from Haldwani to Munsiari.

Sessions

We will be having numerous sessions that are informally organized around the volunteers and based on what they have to offer. We have to be prepared for slight rains in the afternoon, power cuts and internet outages (and other challenges). A rough outline of the schedule is as follows:

• Day 1) Introductions and local interactions, exploration
• Day 2) Introduction to Wikipedia and related projects - working with the groups to identify themes and topics of special interest - some little edits
• Day 3) Photography, uploading to Commons, copyright and licensing - introduction to tools, using mobile phones etc.
• Day 4) Editing workshop - in multiple languages and groups working around key participants and their language choices - through the day and using media found during the previous day.
• Day 5) Outdoor trip - exploring the region.
• Day 6) Other activities based on group discussions

Outcomes

The Himalayan regions have had a history of being less connected thanks to the difficulty of transport. Internet connectivity has improved in very recent times but the number of contributions to Wikimedia Commons from the region are limited. A recent PEG application (which successfully received a grant) noted the value of improving content from this region. While we will be taking our cameras to document subjects of interest, we would like to emphasise our role in making workshop attendees from the region realize that they can make valuable contributions based on their knowledge and using fairly low-cost tools like mobile phone cameras. This would also be an opportunity to identify subjects that people in this region seek information on and accordingly focus on content. The Wikipedian volunteers hope to be able to continue to work with interested local workshop attendees and support them remotely.

• The primary aim is to show the value of small and local contributions to the various projects (especially Wikimedia Commons, Wikivoyage and Wikipedia in Hindi and English)
  • critically examining content of local relevance
  • how to add or correct material
  • realize the value of media obtained using simple tools like mobile cameras
  • making them realize the value of local context that may be invisible to outsiders
  • examining the possibility of using a local mediawiki server(s)
• Visiting volunteers will be taking photographs, recording videos and sounds and contributing to Commons
• Improving a few articles of local interest and value - in multiple languages according to participant abilities
• Improvements to relevant WikiVoyage pages - based on participant travels

Questions or clarification requests

Please use the discussion page

Interested editors

Add your name here to indicate interest in this event (i.e. being there or merely interested in the idea, but do specify in what way). Please also email en:User:Shyamal as we will need personal information to communicate and coordinate.

Interested in the outcome

• Add your name here
• Nrgullapalli (talk) 11:29, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
• Subbush (talk) 04:28, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Interested in being there

Please also send mail to the coordinators failing which we assume you are only interested in the outcome.

• Add your name here