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Mrinalini Mukherjee at MS University, Baroda1969. PIc/source: Jyoti Bhatt. Courtesy: The Baroda Archives project, Asia Art Archive

The late Mrinalini Mukherjee, who fashioned the most sensuous sculptures out of hemp, is a name that Indian art history cannot afford to miss out. Mukherjee, who passed away in 2015, was notable for her iconic figures at once robust and curvaceous inspired by goddesses, vegetation and archetypal forms. Her works are part of collections at Tate and New Delhi's National Gallery of Modern Art. It should come as a surprise, then, that Mukherjee got a Wikipedia page only about a fortnight ago.

A full list of her exhibitions and biographical details are just a click away now, thanks to a daylong event in Chandigarh called the Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon. The event, organised by a non-profit called Heritage Lab, hits Mumbai on April 29 at Lower Parel's Piramal Museum of Art, where artists like Damyanti Chowla, Sunayni Devi, Nilima Sheikh and Madhvi Parekh are set to get Wikipedia entries. The Edit-a-Thon is an attempt to make the free online encyclopaedia a space where women artists from India can find equal representation as their male counterparts. "It is easy to find an artist like Amrita Sher-Gil on Wikipedia. She had an edge over others as she was declared a National Treasure artist. But, what about the remaining female artists?" says Medhavi Gandhi, who founded Heritage Lab in 2015.

Medhavi Gandhi

The feminine touch Gandhi, an MBA graduate who has been working towards improving the visibility of the arts and museums, has partnered with the Art+Feminism Movement (art.plusfeminism.org) to bring this Edit-a-Thon to India. The global movement, which started in 2014 in the US as "a conversation between four friends who wanted to create meaningful changes to the body of knowledge available about feminism and the arts on Wikipedia", partners with interested individuals and establishments the world-over.

Cultural theorist and curator Nancy Adajania says, "The Euro-American art worlds have become more vocal in recent times about the under-representation of women artists in art history. Museum exhibitions and publications on women artists are addressing this issue. In India, we have long had very prominent women artists, whose work has been well acknowledged. We need to ensure that global public platforms such as Wikipedia reflect this."

At a time when having a Wikipedia page seems to be the easiest, and the most obvious, Internet resource, what's stopping our artists from getting one of their own? "Editing a Wikipedia page is a gendered activity, with most of it being done by male users. There is a misconception that using a Wikipedia dashboard requires a knowledge of coding, but that's not the case at all. It is important that diverse sets of people add their research to these pages," says Gandhi, who was introduced to editing the online portal through members at Art+Feminism.

At the Edit-a-Thon in Chandigarhs Government Museum and Art Gallery, participants create a Wikipedia page for Sheela Gowda

Adajania says that the last decade has seen major publications on women artists such as Nalini Malani, Amrita Sher-Gil, Arpita Singh, Nilima Sheikh, Navjot Altaf and Sheba Chhachhi, among others. "Our publishing scene is definitely improving. However, in some cases, outsized and expensive publications can be a deterrent to those who are really interested in art," she says. Many of these publications, however, are housed at reputable museums across the country. The last two Edit-a-Thons that Heritage Lab organised at the National Museum, New Delhi, and Chandigarh's Government Museum and Art Gallery saw students, journalists and teachers use research material and publications housed in these museums' libraries. It is also, as she puts it, an important way for museums and their resources to connect with the virtual user.

"Several people asked us if this was an event meant for women only. It is for anyone who is interested," Gandhi adds. Did any art historian sign up? Not yet, says Gandhi.

What does the under-representation of women artists on Wikipedia say about the art milieu in India? Artist Sharmistha Ray, who draws on queer politics in her works, says, "If you look at the most significant pool of India's 10 galleries of established and emerging artists, the representation of women artists stands at about 36%. If you look at the international percentages of the gender split at major galleries, it's far less positive. So, overall, I would say India is in a better place. That's not to say it's a perfect balance yet."

As for Wikipedia, she adds, "It's not the measure of an artist by any standard. It's great if there's a bigger effort being made to represent women artists, but I would like to think that a Wikipedia entry is not the ultimate validation of an artist's legacy."

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Heritage Lab comes to Mumbai to help create space on Wikipedia for female artists - Mid-Day

Burger King's latest marketing stunt not only resulted in some less-than-flattering descriptions of its Whopper sandwich online but now Wikipedia is calling on the fast food chain to apologize.

On April 12, the chain unveiled a 15-second TV spot designed to trigger Google Home devices into reciting the definition of a Whopper, pulled from the crowd-sourced online encyclopedia.

Youre watching a 15-second Burger King ad, which is unfortunately not enough time to explain all the fresh ingredients in the Whopper sandwich, an actor playing a Burger King employee says directly into the camera. Any Google Home devices set to respond to voice commands were then set off when the actor said, OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?

BURGER KING'S GOOGLE HOME AD FAILS TO IMPRESS

At some point, public users changed the burger's definition and added "cyanide" as an ingredient in one version. Another user later changed the definition to say the Whopper is "the worst hamburger product" sold by the chain.

But now Burger King is being accused of tampering with the Whopper's page before the ad debuted.

In anopen letterposted Tuesday, several Wikipedia editors claim that it appears the burger giant was actually behind changes to the Whoppers official pagewhich is a clear violation of the sites rules since the edited version constitutes a hidden ad.

For years, the first sentence of the Whopper page read, The Whopper is the signature hamburger sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King and its Australian franchise Hungry Jacks. But a few days prior to the ads release, it was altered to include the burger's ingredients, reading, The Whopper is a burger, consisting of a flame-grilled patty made with 100% beef with no preservatives or fillers, topped with sliced tomatoes, onions, lettuce, pickles, ketchup, and mayonnaise, served on a sesame-seed bun.

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The letter alleges that the new copy was inserted by two users (one namedFermachado123, which sounds strikingly similar tothe Whopper chain's senior vice-president of global-brand management Fernando Machado, and another user called Burger King Corporation.) The editors say the stunt broke several Wikipedia rules:"

No editor may insert advertising, marketing, or promotional material into any article. Our terms of use require all paid editors to prominently post the fact that they are paid, the person or company paying them, and any other relevant affiliations. Our conflict-of-interest guideline strongly discourages editors with a conflict-of-interest from directly editing an article, though they may propose suggestions on the talk page.

Now Wikipedia is demanding that Burger King apologize to our editors and readers as well as admit any wrongdoing and agree to comply with the sites rules going forward.

A representative for Burger King was not immediately available for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Wikipedia demands Burger King apologize after failed Google Home stunt - Fox News

Over at Quartz, reporter Nikhil Sonnad has splayed out the history of Wikipedias page on happiness, the emotion one feels when watching Deadwood or telling visibly irritated people even more about the video game Bloodborne. Despite the ease with which some of us can explain this concept, it turns out to be very difficult for philosophers and editors to pin down, and the eagerness of random Wikipedians to define happiness as things like eggs eggs eggs eggs eggs has not helped. Thus the relatively unsexy subject (compared to most-edited all-stars like George W. Bush and The Undertaker) has birthed a 6,000-edit monster of an entry that reveals Wikipedias workings in fascinating detail.

As Sonnad tells it, theres something heroic about the happiness pages arduous ascent toward meaning, as it has been harried constantly by teen vandals, lunatics, and trolls. The journey began in 2003 with a humble introduction reading Happiness is the state of being happy, which over the course of three years expanded to Happiness is a prolonged or lasting emotional or affective state that feels good or pleasing. Progress was slow:

By 2006, around the 700th revision, Wikipedians monitoring the happiness page were battling near-daily vandalism to preserve a definition only slightly more developed than [the original]. The only meaningful additions at this point are a list of feelings associated with happiness, and a list of feelings not associated with it.

In 2007, this edit happened:

The introduction subsequently traveled through phases of Buddhism, homophobia, and pretension until a single intrepid user cleaned it up:

Outright vandalism is easily reverted in a matter of minutes, but it takes months and an expert Wikipedian like DoctorW to remove one not-great line. This is part of what makes defining a subjective concept like happiness on Wikipedia more like a Socratic dialogue, and less like one person writing it alone. Many of Socrates debates end with total confusionnobody really knows what to think about virtue or piety or whatever is being discussed. That is, the result may not be authoritative, but it does incorporate the views of everyone involved.

As the piece details, the page received many further refinements and passionate defacements before arriving at its anodyne but impeccably Wikipedian 2017 form. Check the whole story out over at Quartz, especially if youre a fan of Wiki Wormhole.

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Read This: A history of happiness on Wikipedia - A.V. Club

Last week, Burger King unleashed an ad that angered the collective internet and one of the internets biggest names by designing a commercial that would intentionally trigger viewers Google Home devices, directing them to the Wikipedia page for the Whopper sandwich. Google responded swiftly by amending Home to no longer respond to the ads prompt: What is the Whopper burger? And now, it looks like Google wasnt the only one angered by the experiment.

Wikipedia has now posted an open letter to Burger King, accusing the brand of editing its Wiki page to include advertising, marketing, or promotional material, which is against the websites rules. The letter continues: Our terms of use require all paid editors to prominently post the fact that they are paid, the person or company paying them, and any other relevant affiliations, a possible reference to an update by a user called Fermachado123 (a name that closely mirrors that of Fernando Machado, BKs head of brand marketing).

Wikipedia also had some choice words for Eaters sister site the Verge, which in its reporting of the stunt, inserted incorrect information on the Burger King Wiki to see if Google Home would read the wrong information. (It did.) Wikipedia is asking for an apology to its editors and readers from all involved.

Wikipedia: Conflict of Interest/Noticeboard open letter [Wikipedia] Google Was Not Okay With That Burger King Ad [E] Burger Kings New Ad Forces Google to Recognize the Whopper [The Verge]

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Wikipedia Is the Next Internet Giant to Be Mad at Burger King - Eater

Business The slow demise of Wikipedia Zero on the subcontinent deserves greater attention from policy makers and public alike.

Wonderful would be the day when the sum of all human knowledge is available to everyone without restrictions or barriers. It would not be much of a stretch to say that all modern notions of freedom espouse this view. Wikipedia Zero, I believe, is a step in this direction. The Wikimedia Foundation (the not-for-profit foundation that maintains Wikipedia and affiliated projects) seeks to increase the availability of Wikipedia by enrolling telecommunication partners in various countries who allow access to it free of cost. The partners do this by designating Wikipedia as zero-rated on their networks.

On March 25, 2017, Ncell, a privately owned mobile operator network, terminated its Wikipedia Zero service. This effectively means that in Nepal, there is now no way to access the online encyclopedia without incurring data charges. The situation is similar in India although it is now explicitly prohibited by the countrys net neutrality laws. Uninor briefly provided access to Wikipedia Zero in India but with its merger and demise the service was terminated.

India and Nepal are now both absent amongst the the list of countries with access to Wikipedia Zero.

When an Internet Service Provider (ISP) designates an application or website as zero rated, it means that they are not adding the traffic originating in that websites direction to the users bill. The question is why would an ISP designate anything as zero rated? This is a very valid question given current capitalistic tendencies. One reason is that perhaps the ISP or telecom operator believes it would attract customers amongst whom the zero rated service is popular. Another popular rationale is if a well-heeled company can pay the telecom operator to provide free access to people in an effort to promote their services. Extrapolating from the above conjecture, some have suggested that the Wikimedia Foundation, by lobbying for access to Wikipedia Zero is condoning practices that run countercurrent to the idea of net neutrality.

Right off the bat I would like to point out that a majority of zero-rating practices employed by massive corporations are dangerous because of their effect on net neutrality. They put small and emerging developers at a disadvantage.

The net neutrality defence, however, is also an overzealous criticism of Wikipedia Zero. There is a fundamental difference between a not-for-profit organisation (WikiMedia) staffed by around 280 people lobbying for access to a global, relatively transparent, user-generated encyclopedia vs a for profit corporation (such as Facebook) staffed by 17,000 people, playing the pied piper to entice users into signing up so that their data can be harvested and sold.

Wikipedias intent is to facilitate learning, while Facebook Zero undeniably stifles net neutrality by attempting to crowd out talent by brute force. Attempting to outdo smaller companies by innovating is healthy but using the brute force of money is dubious at best. The Wikimedia foundation lists not exchanging payment as one of its operating principles for Wikipedia Zero. Looked at it this way, the developer of a new social networking site would face unfair disadvantage due to the data charges required in a region where Facebook Zero lurks this is in sharp contrast to the proliferating number of wiki-based projects.

Importance of Wikipedia in Nepal

It is important to note that the moment there are no net neutrality laws in Nepal nothing of the kind that prohibits Wikipedia Zero in the country. However, debate and discussion is slowly starting, centred, much like India, around the dangers of free Facebook access.

Alexa currently rates Wikipedia as the 12th most visited website in Nepal. In a country where only one-third of the population is connected to the Internet this underscores a definite thirst for the most essential of resource, knowledge. The World Bank estimates that around 25% of the population lives below the poverty line in Nepal. So, even if a quarter of the population is living below the poverty line and one third of the population is plugged into the great web then there is a demonstrable need for this service. Additionally, since Wikipedia was adding more visual content, the same articles would now be more data intense if viewed in their entirety.

As a student who has used Wikipedia extensively for primary research and had to cross-check the data before using it, I can say that the information is mostly reliable and is consistently improving. Recently, an animation house called Osmosis teamed up with Wikipedia to provide free drawn-cum-animated videos for quite a few medical topics. Here is a video explaining diabetes produced by Osmosis and made available on Wikipedia.

Although the content is targeted at a small population of medical students, the underlying financial model is worth taking note of. These videos are a boon for most of the students in my college and has helped many understand and memorise things better by providing a memory template. It is reasonable to expect the spread of this trend. I would like to add a caveat though that information on Wikipedia should never be used before verifying from appropriate primary sources. Wikipedia is not the best source of information it can certainly never replace formal education. However, it is one of the better sources.

The point I am trying to underscore here is that Nepal uses Wikipedia extensively and any action that reduces access to it is regressive. Corporations such as NCell, the only telecommunication provider who once provided access to Wikipedia Zero, should perhaps consider this.

Events such as this point to a larger disinterest in the utility of Internet beyond the most basal needs of instant communication and provision of consumer services. A report released around the October of 2016 claimed that most of the search engine queries arising from the free WiFi provided at Patna Station in Bihar were related to pornography. This point is raised not as a segue to prudish platitudes but to highlight the absence of awareness about the potential of the Internet itself.

Curiosity, of some sort, any sort, is the common strand uniting our disparate lives. This innate hunger for knowing is channelised by wiki-based projects. People want to enhance their knowledge of the entity about whom they possess curiosity, this can range from the net worth of some actor to the history of physics. Wikipedia provides a way to not only aid this acquisition of knowledge but also encourages a user to become a contributor, in the process engaging with others in a constructive and respectful manner, guided by general principles.

The concept of a wiki eschews established norms of behaviour and engagement such as those defined by hierarchy, caste and other biases in favor for a system that rewards rationality and consensus building through review. This is resonant with the ideal functioning of a democracy and one could even argue that our children should learn such a model of collaboration.

Free data, free information

India ranks poorly in number of Wikipedia edits originating within its borders. It will definitely take some time before we reach a point where children are encouraged to locally develop wiki projects from a young age. That however makes the issue of Wikipedia Zero even more pertinent.

Such technologies can also be used to aid governance. It would be feasible to allocate dedicated spectrum for certain functions. For example spectrum could be dedicated to aiding government programs dealing with maternal health. Expecting mothers could be provided access to articles, videos and other multimedia content in their local language, that has been scientifically curated, thus enabling them to better understand and protect their health. This might help bridge the unacceptably huge knowledge gap between India and Bharat.

In a country where infant mortality due to diarrhoea is still a huge public health menace and exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months not a norm, such knowledge based interventions could have a significant impact. It is one thing to advise someone about using ORS or benefits of exclusive breast feeding but enabling them to view a variety of digital content explaining the rationale behind the advice is another. By engaging the curiosity of the individual for whom the intervention is intended we turn her into a emboldened stakeholder who is far more likely to adhere to advice than a passive recipient.

These are but just a few hypothetical applications. Wikimedia also has many other projects such as Wikibooks, Wikitravels and so on. Talking about all of which is beyond the scope of this article but I am listing them because I have used these as well and found them to be very enabling. I learnt the basics of 3-D modelling using the Wikibooks on blender, which was a very enabling experience.

It makes sense to increase access to such evolving repositories of knowledge. The possibilities are endless and the irony is that instead of taking a step forward we just took one backwards. Countries like India and Nepal are full of upwardly mobile youth who are restless and hungry for ideas, who wish to see a change and are willing to work towards it.

Stifling such a wonderful force by refusing to remove or even acknowledge barriers to information would be an unimaginable loss. The slow demise of Wikipedia Zero on the subcontinent should be afforded greater attention by policy makers and public alike.

Shwetank Singh iscurrently studying at the B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences in Dharan, Nepal.

Categories: Business, Digital, Featured

Tagged as: Facebook, Free Basics, information search, Ncell, Nepal, Nepal Telecom, net neutrality, not-for-profit, telecom service provider, Wikpedia Zero, zero-rated service, zero-rating

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As Nepal's Ncell Shuts Access to Wikipedia Zero, What Next For Information Without Barriers? - The Wire