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Wikipedia Takes Chennai is a scavenger hunt for free content photography in Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu, India in association with The Knowledge Foundation, Chennai. This is inspired by "Wikipedia Takes The City" that happens all around the world. The aim of this exercise is to encourage participants to compete to take photographs of as many local sights as possible for Wikipedia articles. This is aimed at illustrating Wikipedia articles, thereby nourishing Wikipedia and promote awareness about Wikipedia in the city.

All Wikipedians and non-Wikipedians are invited to participate in team of up to three (no special knowledge is required at all, just a digital camera and a love of the city).

Date: Sunday 9AM,16th August, 2009 .

Venue: Natesan Park, Venkat Narayana Road, T.Nagar (map)

Prizes are not yet decided. If you would like to donate something, please contact the organizers.

Guidelines for the event

Backdrop activities:

• Spread word through media
• Get registrations.
• Take a list of registrations and numbers.
• This is a team event. Teams can be comprised of maximum three members.

Basic requirements:

1. Camera
2. Vehicle to move around/ public transport/ autos are also okay.
3. Data cable/ card reader for transfer of photos.

Activities:

• Assembly Point and time: Natesan Park in T.Nagar at 9.00 AM.
• Team formation - quickly form teams.
• Move around to areas, shoot pictures at will.
• Report back to Assembly Point by 5.00 PM.
• Photos to be transferred to laptop.

Dos and Donts for the photo-walk.

Do's:

• Bring plenty of water - its going to be sweltering out there, so water is absolutely essential.
• Wear light-coloured clothing, caps...
• Keep your minds open. Do not worry about the angles/ nitty gritties of the photo.
• Try and take a clear shot of the building.
• Note down the list of places, names of buildings that you photograph.
• If you learn something new about a landmark/ statue/ building, do pass on the info. It would be very useful to update in the wiki pages.
• Use one memory card per team. Make sure the memory card is empty before you start taking the photographs.

Do not:

• Do not take pictures of people - To maintain a level of decency and also not to breach privacy
• Remember that all photos will be used for wikipedia, hence do not include personal photos. Personal photos will not be considered for selection.
• Do not loiter around and get too nosy
• Do not go into people's homes to photograph. All photos to be buildings/ statues/ landmarks of Chennai.
• Do not take photos where it is prohibited to do so.

Chennai (Madras) based articles that need Photographs

A list of articles needing photographs can be compiled from sources such as Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Chennai and Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Tamil Nadu, and even by manually going through articles in subcategories of Category:Chennai.

Please list down the links to the articles that need photos below.

• Category:Tamil literature: Marina beach is lined with statues of Tamil literary figures - poets (e.g. Avvaiyar), scholars (e.g. G.U. Pope) and characters from Tamil literature (e.g. Kannagi). Having a photo of each of those statues on Commons would be excellent from the point of view of illustrating these articles. -- Arvind (talk) 11:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Tamil nationalism: If I remember correctly, the municipal corporation building in Chennai (the one by Chennai Central station) has a huge neon "Valka Tamil" sign that's turned on at night. That would be nice to have as an example of Tamil cultural nationalism. -- Arvind (talk) 11:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Photos of the major temples and churches - we have some, but important ones are missing e.g. Vadapalani Andavar Temple and Ashtalakshmi Kovil -- Arvind (talk) 11:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Chennai Suburban Railway: Pictures of the individual stations of the suburban railway system will help too. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 12:03, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Exercise caution doing this. I am not sure, but you may require permission. Read page 13 here. Organisers can help in this regard. Srikanth (speak) 12:24, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Transport: Pictures of MTC,SETC,TNSTC buses,CMBT,Broadway bus stands, NH 4, NH 5, NH 45,East Coast Road,and any major road / flyovers in Chennai will help Transport in Chennai , Indian Roads Projects — Preceding unsigned comment added by Logicwiki (talk • contribs)
• Attractions. I created these articles recently. Saravana Stores, Adyar Anandha Bhavan, MGM Dizzee World, VGP Golden Beach, Dash N Splash and Saravana Bhavan and Kishkinta which was not created by me. --Like I Care 14:12, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Madras High Court, and other landmarks like the Kannimara library could do with individual photographs. Is the old building of the Government General Hospital still around? If so, that would be good to have. Egmore Eye Hospital in Ezhumbur, the second oldest eye hospital in the world, deserves a take as well. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 07:00, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Skylines Pictures of skylines in neighborhoods of chennai featuring a notable street / place in the locality to improve like the one in Adambakkam for all the places in Template:Neighbourhoods_of_Chennai and Category:Chennai_suburbs Srikanth (speak) 07:06, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Famous Schools. Example, Avichi School in Virugambakkam, SBOA in Anna Nagar, Churchpark, DAV.
• Anna University, Guindy Campus
• University of Madras
• Connemara Library
• Thousands lights Mosque
• MGR Memorial
• Vivekanandar Illam ( photos from inside the monumnet)
• Raj Bhavan, Chennai
• Egmore railway station. Photos needed from inside the station.
• Theosophical society
• Kalakshetra

Please sign up here, so that we can get an idea of the level of interest this will have.

Organizers

• Kirubashankar (talk) Kiruba at Kiruba.com, 9841597744 10:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• RajasekarNonburaj (talk) | rajaobj at gmail dot com | 9840727371
• Karthik Narayan (talk) | karthik dot globalsoul at gmail dot com | 9962070090
• Anantha Shankar K R (talk) | hantan dot invincibilitus at gmail dot com | 09176287344

Participants

• Ramesh Ramaiah
• Balakumar Muthu
• Hema Priyadharshini
• Arvind Arasu
• Dinesh Cyanam (talk)
• Sankarapandian T
• Pradep Kumar P
• Guru Prasadh K
• Balajee Ganesh R
• Vignesh raja s
• S.Jayaram
• T.Prem
• Rakesh
• Prasanna
• MSR
• Bharath
• HARIKRISHNAN
• Saravanan Paramasivan
• Rohit S Prasad
• Vasantharaajan Nagarajan
• Balamurugan Srinivasan
• Ms Chaganti
• Prafula Pandian
• Himashnee Sathasivam
• Balamurugan Balusamy
• Ramaswamy N
• Vinod Hariharan
• veeresh
• damodaran_ramswamy
• saravanan_sampath
• Shankar P K
• Anish_M
• Siva kumaran.M
• Ajay R
• Ramesh K
• Sharada B
• Vishesh Unni R
• Siddharth K
• Diwakar EV
• Siddharth
• Invent Sekar
• Tsering Wangmo
• Bharadwaj
• Anshul Chandel
• Ashish Jha
• R.Muthusamy

Not in Chennai but still willing to help

• Srikanth (speak) 12:14, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Ganeshk (talk) 12:22, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• -- Tinu Cherian - 12:30, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Naveenpf (talk) 12:36, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 17:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC)--[reply]
• ....కిరణ్మయి (talk)

• -- Wenkey27
• Sripal (talk) 16:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See the full list at Commons:Wikipedia Takes Chennai.

• Facebook Event Page : http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117817882270
• http://www.rajasekar.net/2009/08/wikipediawikipedia-takes-chennai.html
• http://eloosemotion.blogspot.com/2009/08/wikipedia-takes-chennai.html
• http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Of+Kannadasan,+Kilpauk+and+kaapi&artid=SwLBDwO1PJA=&SectionID=lifojHIWDUU=&MainSectionID=wIcBMLGbUJI=&SectionName=rSY%7C6QYp3kQ=&SEO=