*The Hindu : "Encyclopaedia on the web"*
http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/kids/article1573772.ece
*Ten years ago Jimmy Wales had an idea. The idea snowballed into something
so versatile and innovative that it is almost a sensation.*
*Wikipedia is 10. In his short and simple video clip, on January 15, 2011,
Jimmy Wales said: “Hello I am Jimmy Wales and I am with Wikipedia and today
we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia. It is hard to imagine
that is has been 10 years since I first edited Wikipedia.*
*
*
*I remember that first day. I put it on ‘edit' and I wrote ‘Hello world,'
and that was the beginning of Wikipedia and all the things that have come
since then.*
*
*
*Today we have got millions of articles in hundreds of languages. These days
about 400 million people a month visit the website. And that is just an
astounding thing to have happened if you really think about the impact on
our culture; it's staggering. And it's all thanks to you. I want to thank
everybody who has helped. I want to thank all the people who have helped,
all the people who have edited Wikipedia, who have contributed in this way.
I want to thank the people who are reading Wikipedia, who are really
engaging with ideas and minds. That's why we made it ... we made it for you
to read.*
*
*
*And I have a little bit of a call for action ... a little bit of a request
for everybody. Even though we have got millions of articles, even though we
are in hundreds of languages, we have still a lot of work to do.*
*
*
*So I want everybody out there if you have never edited Wikipedia, to try
it. Give a try. Click on ‘edit.' If you see some problem, fix it for us. We
really appreciate it.*
*
*
*And well, happy birthday Wikipedia!”*
*
*
*… officially, Wikipedia “is a multilingual, web-based, free-content
encyclopaedia project,” with its name derived from the word-combination of
“Wiki” (from the Hawaiian “Wiki” meaning quick”) and “encyclopaedia”. Its
articles are cross-linked with other related pages that have more
information. It is a collaborative effort and the articles are written by,
most often, anonymous Internet volunteers who do it for free.*
*
*
*Because of its nature, Wikipedia operates using what are called “five
pillars” or “fundamental principles”. Important among these are: that an
article has a neutral view, is accurate and has facts that can be easily
verified. Personal opinions are not acceptable. Also, as no editor owns any
article, contributions can be edited.*
*
*
*How did Wikipedia begin? And whose idea was it? Wikipedia was founded as an
outcome of ‘Nupedia,' which was supposed to be a project to produce a free
encyclopaedia.*
*
*
*In 2000, Jimmy Wales, founder of Nupedia, and Larry Sanger, were thinking
of ways to expand Nupedia. After much thought about allowing members of the
public to make contributions, the idea of a “Wikipedia” was born. It was
launched on January 15, 2001 — which, for many users, is also called
“Wikipedia Day”. The Wikimedia Foundation, now based in San Francisco, was
also launched as the parent organisation.*
*
*
*From May 2001 onwards, a number of multilingual Wikipedias were also
launched — in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Esperanto, French, German, Hebrew,
Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish, to name a few.
*
*
*
*It is estimated that Wikipedia now gets 78 million visitors every month.
There are more than 91,000 active contributors working on more than
17,000,000 articles in more than 270 languages. There are also nearly
3,565,990 articles in English.*
*
*
*Now that's what you would call a pretty “Wiki” idea*
*
*
*Mistaken identity!*
*
*
*Wikipedia is not connected with WikiLeaks! Wiki is not a brand name! Though
WikiLeaks first called itself “the Wikipedia of secrets,” Jimmy Wales was
quick to issue a clarification!*
*
*
*Wikipedia is a project dedicated to the building of free encyclopaedias in
all languages.*
*
*
*The project started with the English-language Wikipedia on January 15,
2001, and then by a French edition. Other languages followed.*
*
*
*Based on information in January 2011, there are 278 language editions of
Wikipedia, which together have more than 17 million articles*
*
*
*.Some important Wikimedia projects:*
*
*
*Wikipedia: It's the main thing!*
*
*
*Wikimedia Commons: A house of images, sounds, videos and media, common to
all Wikimedia projects.*
*
*
*Wikibooks: A collection of free educational textbooks and learning
materials.*
*
*
*Wiktionary: A dictionary that has meanings, synonyms, etymologies and
translations.*
*
*
*Wikinews: A news source of reporting by citizen journalists from across the
world.*
*
*
*Wikisource: A project to provide and translate free source documents, such
as public domain books.*
*
*
*Wikiquote: A collection of quotations.*
*
*
*Wikispecies: A directory of data on species and other forms of life.*
*
*
*Wikiversity: A free learning environment for the study of human knowledge.*
*
*
*There are many fun things at Wikipedia, such as:*
*
*
*Wikipedia: Contests (article-writing and other kinds) which encourage users
to make contributions.*
*
*
*WikiQuizes: a game of various quizzes pertaining to a wide variety of
subjects where users obtain points and awards.*
*
*
*WikiCup 2011: A championship which takes place every year on Wikipedia. The
cup is played and won by those who show a considerable skill in editing.
Entry is available for any registered user.*
*
*
*WikiGames*
*
*
*Wikisong: “Hotel Wikipedia” is the official theme song, and is based on The
Eagles' 1976 song “Hotel California”.*
*
*
*Wikipedia at 10:*
*
*
*Most of the events happened in January this year. Some were: forming a
Wikipedia timeline — what are the most important events of the past 10
years? Tracing the growth of Wikipedia, from a tiny website to one of the
largest reference sites in the world.*
*
*
*Musical tributes — A special Wikipedia song was composed and performed by
members of ‘Building 25', a young and emerging Australian theatre
collective, in celebration of Wikipedia's 10th Anniversary.*
*
*
*A Wikipedia ‘Top 10'*
*
*
*A time capsule of the Wikipedia 10th anniversary, inviting thoughts, wishes
and ideas about the future of Wikipedia. It would be protected till 2026,
when it would be time for the Wikipedia 25th anniversary.*
*
*
*Images*
*
*
*But the most important thing was an announcement by the Executive Director,
Wikipedia, Sue Gardner, that it was focusing on India and Brazil to reach
its target of one billion users. It would be opening its first overseas
office in India and boosting readership with articles in English and several
Indian languages. Among the 316 events marking the 10th anniversary in 104
countries, 60 events were scheduled inside India, she said.*
*
*
*There is also a ‘Wikipedia 10,' a wide-ranging multi-language design
concept to help Wikimedia celebrate its 10th year anniversary of Wikipedia.
It is based on “ten dots, the Wikipedia word mark and the numeral 10,” and
uses the slogan “Wikipedia, one of the most successful projects of the
world, will be 10 years old. Let's celebrate!”*
*
*
*There is also Wikimedia India - an approved chapter of the Wikimedia
Foundation for Wikimedians living in, or connected to India - on Facebook
at: http://www.facebook.com/WikimediaIndia*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
http://wikimedia.in/wiki/In_the_news#March_2011
Impressive!
- Sundar
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
>________________________________
>From: Naveen Francis <naveenpf(a)gmail.com>
>To: Wikimedia India list <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2011 10:53 AM
>Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Buzz ...
>
>
>Hi all,
>
>It is election season in Kerala.
>I have one good news to share with you all.
>Shiju Alex has convinced LDF election web team to change there site license to creative commons license.
>http://www.ldfkeralam.org/
>
>And now we are having images of candidates in commons and process is in progress.
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_ldfkeralam.org_w…
>
>Before this we didn't had images for many ministers in Kerala
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_S_Achuthanandan_Ministry
>
>He has also convinced http://www.ldfkannur.org/ web team to change there license. Now they are also creative commons.
>
>Thanks a lot Shiju !!! ... Need more site creative commons
>
>I think it is change in happening though it is slow.
>
>--
>Naveen Francis
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>
>
>
*The Hindu : "Malayalam's Wiki warrior"*
http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/society/article1564461.ece
*Santosh Thottingal has done wonders for Malayalam computing. He is the only
Indian on Wikipedia's recently-expanded language committee*
*
*
*Santhosh Thottingal has just logged on to the big leagues in cyber world.
This young techie's contribution to the Indian language computing scene,
along with his numerous contributions to Wikipedia (Wiki) projects, is
taking him places. He is the only Indian in Wikimedia Foundation's
newly-expanded 16-member language committee, which was announced on February
28.*
*
*
*Language committee*
*
*
*“Wiki hosts 279 languages across the world, including 20 Indian languages.
In addition, there are 20-plus Indian languages in the incubator. The role
of the language committee is to help people start a Wiki in their language,
and it is this committee that approves a request for Wiki in a new
language,” explains Santosh, a Free Open Source Software (FOSS) activist and
fan of GNU, a free Operating System.*
*
*
*Santhosh has been associated with Wiki projects for two to three years now.
“I have done projects for Malayalam Wiki. I created the software for an
offline distribution of Malayalam Wiki with 500 select articles. It was the
first of its kind from India, and the Government of Kerala distributed the
CD containing this to 60,000 schools in April 2010,” says Santosh.*
*
*
*Chennai-based Santosh, who works for an IT company, is first and foremost a
free software developer and is also a project administrator for Swathanthra
Malayalam computing, which supports Malayalam for free software.*
*
*
*For the last five years, he has been working on “Indic language technology
development and associated research.” He developed ‘Dhvani,' a
text-to-speech system for the visually challenged in India, along with a
professor from the Institute of Science, Bangalore. This is a system for 10
Indian languages, and Pashto language too. It won the FOSS India award in
2008.*
*
*
*Along with his team of volunteers at Swathanthra, Santosh has developed a
number of free software for Malayalam computing, enabling the use of
Malayalam with GNU and Linux Operating Systems. This project holds the
honour of being the biggest free software project in India in this area.*
*
*
*Literature buff*
*
*
*Malayalam Wiki has a sister project called Malayalam Wikisource, where
books with expired copyrights are available and it helps that Santosh is a
fan of Malayalam literature. He helped convert Indulekha, the first novel in
of Malayalam, and Keralapanineeyam to Wikisource. The complete works of Sree
Narayana Guru is also on Wikisource due to Santhosh's efforts.*
*
*
*Connecting people*
*
*
*“Cyberspace in Malayalam is a space for Malayalis all over the world to
connect. You see it in Facebook, blogs, Google Buzz, Twitter…. These spaces
are utilised, for politics, for fun, for friendship… In all these ways, it
connects people. For the first time in history, social networking is making
waves.*
*
*
*“Wiki is one example where Malayalis all over the world have showed their
creativity. In fact, did you know that Malayalam Wiki is rated second in
page depth – a parameter used to measure the activities and content?” asks
Santosh.*
*
*
*Santhosh was in Poland last year as a representative from Indian Wiki for
‘Wikimania 2010' – Wiki's annual conference. And he is proud about how Jimmy
Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, talked about the Malayalam Wiki's
activities in his keynote speech.*
*
*
*In Poland, Santhosh conducted a workshop on creating offline Wiki
repositories along with Shiju Alex, who coordinates many advocacy and
outreach activities for Malayalam Wiki and Tinu Cherian, who works in the
administration of English Wiki.*
*
*
*Santhosh will soon attend a meeting of the language committee in Berlin and
possibly hop over to Israel for this year's ‘Wikimania.'*
*
*
*This bachelor from Palakkad, son of a farmer and home-maker couple, claims
that he is a “home-made product” – a graduate of the 2005 batch of the NSS
Engineering College, Palakkad.*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
http://wikimedia.in/wiki/In_the_news#March_2011
*The OPEN mag : "Vernacular Wikipedia"*
http://openthemagazine.com/article/art-culture/vernacular-wikipedia ( See
Link too)
*It’s not just Hindi and Tamil. The online encyclopaedia is serious about
Wiki versions in Sanskrit, Pali and forgotten languages like Angika too*
*
*
*Do people know the power of their ideas? Take Jim Wales, founder,
Wikimedia, for instance. Could he have pictured a decade ago that a
government-run primary school in a remote village in Tamil Nadu would use
Tamil Wikipedia for learning things beyond their syllabus? “It was a great
moral booster for us and gave us hope that it is only a matter of time
before other schools use it too,” says A Ravishankar, who is a Tamil editor
and contributes to Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks and Wikisource in the
regional language.*
*
*
*Known for its other allied projects such as Wikiversity and Wikiquotes,
Wikimedia’s most popular one, however, remains Wikipedia, a free-for-all
encyclopedia on the internet that can be edited by anyone. Available in more
than 275 languages, Wikipedia is used by more than 400 million people every
month, while nearly 11.5 million monthly edits are done on its articles.*
*
*
*Back home in India, Wikipedia has a presence in 22 languages, with more
than 20 in incubation stage. One of them is Angika, a language spoken in the
states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal and written in the Devnagari
script. “I had drifted away from my mother tongue, but learnt to value it
later. I don’t want people like me to forget it, and thus the initiative,”
says Kundan Amitabh, who also edits in English and Hindi. Interestingly, he
has also worked on Google, the internet search engine, in Angika and
translated the interface.*
*
*
*For a new language to get onto Wikipedia, it has to be incubated first.
Content is translated and localised in the language. A language approval
committee then monitors the consistency of articles being contributed and
decides when the language can go live. “Since the language is in incubation,
few people know about it. But I push it by talking to the local media,
reaching out to local schools and colleges, and asking them to contribute,”
says Amitabh.The Angika page will go live anytime now, he says.*
*
*
*Abhay Natu, who has been a user and editor since November 2005, says
Marathi Wikipedians want their page to grow to a point where it becomes a
premium yet free reference site, accessible to anyone who can read Marathi.*
*
*
*That’s one of the charms of Wikipedia—that it is available in your own
language. And if not, you may take the initiative and get it in your
vernacular. And as Arun Ramarathnam, executive committee member, Wikipedia’s
Indian chapter, puts it, “Indian languages are the language of choice in
smaller towns and villages. It is important for the knowledge of the world
to be available to people in these areas in a language of their choice.”*
*
*
*That is exactly how Sankalp Dravid, an editor in Marathi, got pulled into
it. In 2005, he chanced upon the Marathi page while searching for Vande
mataram and Bankimchandra Bose. “I spotted some shuddhalekham (grammar)
mistakes and tried to rectify them.” But the real contribution started when
he read a book by well-known Marathi artist Ravi Paranjpe. “It was about the
great artists of the world like Degas, Monet, and so on. I decided to put a
little bit of information about them on the Marathi page.” Soon, following
other users’ edits, Dravid learnt more about editing styles and syntax, and
was contributing more and more.*
*
*
*What is lacking, however, is awareness. While most people know about
English Wikipedia, not many know it is available in their own spoken
language. Says a Tamil editor, who prefers to be known by his pseudonym
Sodabottle, “For English, there is an abundance of sources such as Google
books, internet editions of newspapers and magazines. There is little
content available online in regional languages. That there is no
standardisation of format makes it tougher.”*
*
*
*Arjun Rao Chavala, editor, Telugu, and president, Wikimedia’s India
chapter, holds ‘Wiki academies’ on a regular basis in Andhra Pradesh. “These
are half-day events covering Wikipedia, typing in the local language and
Wikipedia policies. They include hands-on sessions,” he says. These sessions
are held in universities and colleges with good internet access.*
*
*
*Being a Wikipedian is not only about online campaigns, editing and writing.
It involves everything from organising offline meets and workshops, to
taking the movement to schools and colleges, without asking for anything in
return. “But it’s great interacting with people I would not have met if not
for Wikipedia,” says Natu, who has also met Wales. For Bengali editor Jayanta
Nath, the surprise visit by Tamil editors Tinu Cherian and Shiju Alex to
Kolkata was memorable. “They had been pushing me to conduct a workshop, but
I was a little wary. I thought ours (Bengali Wikipedians) is not a big
community and no one would come.” Well, what do you know? They held one last
December, and 18 people attended.*
*
*
*There is also the technology hurdle to overcome. However, most regional
language Wikipedians agree that the ease of using technology has increased
manifold since the early part of the century. For languages such as Tamil,
there are open source content management sources that are Unicode
compatible.*
*
*
*That the Indian chapter of Wikipedia is now registered with the Registrar
of Companies also helps greatly. “It will ease networking with language
forums and government bodies,” says Ramarathnam, “Our focus in on building
more local focus groups and training core teams to start working
independently.”*
*
*
*He also wants more such Wiki communities to grow in peripheral states of
India, such as those in Northeast India. “The governments there are too
caught up with internal priorities, but we still need coverage from there,”
he says. *
*
*
*With Wikimedia set to open its second office outside the US in India is
another reason for cheer. “Being in India works for Wikimedia, given the
country’s diversity, plus internet and mobile telephony penetration in
India,” says Bishakaha Dutta, the first Indian trustee at the Wikimedia
Foundation.*
*
*
*“There is so much information to be shared, and although the number of
contributors is always smaller than the number of readers, Wikipedia helps
give such people a platform to contribute and collaborate in their own small
way,” says Chavala.*
*
*
*But most of all, Indians need to turn hungrier for information and
analysis. “That would be a slow process and a macro-sociological
phenomenon,” says Sankalp Dravid. Which, of course, is a different story
altogether.*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
http://wikimedia.in/wiki/In_the_news#March_2011
... and I have yet to search for 'Bankimchandra Bose' :)
BTW, I was startled to read that many of the Indian languages are *still*
tagged as "regional" languages, (factually, they are "official" languages as
far as Republic of India is concerned and some of them have official status
across multiple nations)
But ya, I agree with Tinu; this article did its job to bring Indic language
wikipedias in focus.
Thanks,
Sankalp
2011/3/25 <wikimediaindia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
> On 25 March 2011 15:51, CherianTinu Abraham <tinucherian(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> + more..
>> * Shiju and me are referred as Tamil Wikipedians.
>> * Jim Wales instead of Jimmy Wales
>> * 22 Indian lang Wikipedias instead of 20
>>
>> Honestly, It is very rare we can get a completely error free media article
>> , how much ever we help and participate closely. Can't always help it but
>> unfortunately it is the way it is. Sometimes they make lots of goof-ups
>> that I myself is embarrassed to send it to the mailing list.
>>
>> However glad to see this article at least tried to cover Indian language
>> Wikipedias in focus.
>>
>> I was told, that the print edition is already available in Delhi, but for
>> other locations, it may hit the news stands by the weekend.
>>
>> Regards
>> Tinu Cherian
>>
>>
>>
>Just an example fi or Finnish is actually called Suomi in Finland :)
Interesting. Some exonyms just stick, I suppose. :)
- Sundar
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
>________________________________
>From: Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
>To: BalaSundaraRaman <sundarbecse(a)yahoo.com>; Wikimedia India Community list <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>Cc: Oriya Wikipedia <wikipedia-or(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 12:12 AM
>Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Odia and Odisha
>
>
>Hoi,
>The or code is from the ISO-639-1, the code in the ISO-639-3 is ori. The codes are meant as a unique identifier and making them easy to remember is in some way helpful in others it is problematic. It is problematic because all the existing expressions in a language will still be known by the old code.
>
>Consequently the codes stay the same and the new name is added with the old name as a valid synonym. To understand this, these names and codes are used internationally and the rest of the world does often find it hard to change.
>
>Just an example fi or Finnish is actually called Suomi in Finland :)
>Thanks,
> GerardM
>
>
>On 24 March 2011 16:34, BalaSundaraRaman <sundarbecse(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>If ISO code also changes correspondingly from or to od, we should perhaps move wiki projects as well?
>>
>>
>>- Sundar
>>
>>"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
>>- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
>>
>>
>>>________________________________
>>>From: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline(a)gmail.com>
>>>To: Discussion list on Indian language projects of Wikimedia. <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>; Oriya Wikipedia <wikipedia-or(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>>>Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2011 8:59 PM
>>>Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Odia and Odisha
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Indian Parliament approves new name for Oriya language and Orissa state.
>>>
>>>Now onwards the Oriya language will be called as Odia and the Orissa state will hereafter be called Odisha.
>>>
>>>More detailed news here: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/parliament-approve…
>>>
>>>
>>>Shiju
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>>>Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>>Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>
>>
>
>
>
Dear All,
Few wikimedians who understood the importance of wiki source project is
giving proper care to it. From Indic Wikis, I can show you the example of
Bengali wikisource. According to me, both the wiktionary and wikisource
projects are very important for any language which has online presence.
For a language like Sanskrit (which is a classical language),wikisource is
very much relevant and important projects. Perhaps it might have more number
of source texts (which are in public domain) than most of the Indian
languages.
A request for Sanskrit wikisource is logged on 2010 October
04<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikisource_Sanskr…>.
The request was approved by the language committee on 2010 November 04, and
finally the wiki is created on *2011 March 18* <http://sa.wikisource.org/>.
It is available here: http://sa.wikisource.org
Most of the text from Old Wikisource <http://wikisource.org> is already
migrated to this new wikisource <http://sa.wikisource.org>. A cleanup is
required in the wiki. I request Sanskrit wiki community to take of your wiki
project.
Thanks
Shiju Alex
If ISO code also changes correspondingly from or to od, we should perhaps move wiki projects as well?
- Sundar
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
>________________________________
>From: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline(a)gmail.com>
>To: Discussion list on Indian language projects of Wikimedia. <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>; Oriya Wikipedia <wikipedia-or(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2011 8:59 PM
>Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Odia and Odisha
>
>
>Indian Parliament approves new name for Oriya language and Orissa state.
>
>Now onwards the Oriya language will be called as Odia and the Orissa state will hereafter be called Odisha.
>
>More detailed news here: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/parliament-approve…
>
>
>Shiju
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>
>
>
Oh, I didn't know the origins. For me, Oriya and Orissa are more comfortable (being the way we write in Tamil).
And, I agree that building the wiki is more important.
Regards,
Sundar
Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android