പ്രിയ മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയ സഹപ്രവർത്തകരെ, മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയയിലെ ആദ്യ തിരുത്തൽ നടന്ന് 10 വർഷം പിന്നിടുമ്പോൾ ആദ്യ തിരുത്തൽ നടത്തുകയും വിക്കിപീഡിയയെ ആദ്യത്തെ 2 വർഷത്തോളം പിച്ച വെച്ച് നടത്താൻ പ്രയത്നിക്കുകയും ചെയ്ത മലയാളിയെ പരിചയപ്പെടുന്നത് കുറഞ്ഞത് മലയാളം വിക്കിസംരംഭങ്ങളിൽ സംഭാവന ചെയ്യുന്നവർക്കെങ്കിലും സന്തൊഷകരമായിരിക്കും എന്ന് എനിക്ക് ഉറപ്പുണ്ട്. വിനോദ് എം. പ്രഭാകരനാണ് (വിനോദ് മേനോൻ എന്ന് പലയിടത്തും തെറ്റായി ഉപയൊഗിച്ചിരുന്നു) മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയ തുടങ്ങാനുള്ള പ്രയത്നങ്ങൾക്ക് തുടക്കമിട്ടതെന്ന് നമുക്ക് നാളുകളായി അറിയാമായിരുന്നെങ്കിലും അദ്ദേഹം ആദ്യ നാളിലെ അനുഭവങ്ങൾ നമ്മളുമായി നേരിട്ട് ഒന്നും പങ്ക് വെച്ചിരുന്നില്ല. കഴിഞ്ഞ 3 വർഷമായി ഞാൻ അദ്ദേഹവുമായി നിരവധി തവണ ഇ മെയിലിൽ ബന്ധപ്പെട്ടിട്ടുണ്ടെങ്കിലും സാധാരണ കുശലാന്വേഷണങ്ങൾക്കും വിക്കിയുടെ നിലവിലുള്ള സ്ഥിതിയെപറ്റിയുള്ള ചില കമെന്റുകളും ഒഴിച്ചാൽ അതിനപ്പുറമുള്ള കാര്യങ്ങൾ ഒന്നും ചർച്ച ചെയ്യാൻ അദ്ദെഹം തുനിഞ്ഞിരുന്നില്ല. ജോലി സംബന്ധമായ തിരക്കുകൾ മൂലമായിരിക്കാം അത്. അവസാനം മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയ ആദ്യതിരുത്തലിന്റെ 10 വർഷം ആഘോഷിക്കുന്ന ഈ വേളയിൽ അദ്ദേഹവുമായി മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയയുടെ ആദ്യ നാളുകളെ കുറിച്ച് മാതൃഭൂമി പത്രപ്രവർത്തകനായ ജോസഫ് ആന്റണി സംസാരിക്കുകയും അത് ജോസഫ് ആന്റണി തന്റെ ബ്ലോഗിലൂടെ പങ്ക് വെക്കുകയും ചെയ്തിരിക്കുന്നു. അത് ഇവിടെ വായിക്കാം. http://kurinjionline.blogspot.in/2012/12/blog-post_21.html വിനോദ് മെയിലിലൂടെ ചൊദ്യങ്ങൾക്ക് മറുപടി തന്ന മറുപടി ഉപയൊഗിച്ചാണ് ജൊസഫ് ആന്റണി തന്റെ ബ്ലോഗ് എഴുതിയിരിക്കുന്നത്. ആ ബ്ലൊഗ്ഗിന്റെ ഒപ്പം തന്നെ വിനോദ് തന്ന മറുപടികളും ജൊസഫ് ആന്റണിയും ഞാനും ചൊദിച്ച ചൊദ്യങ്ങൾക്ക് തന്ന ഉത്തരങ്ങളും താഴെ വായിക്കുക. ഈ മറുപടി നിങ്ങളുമായി പങ്ക് വെക്കുവാൻ അനുമതി തന്ന വിനോദിനു നന്ദി. മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയയുടെ ചരിത്രത്തിൽ സവിശെഷപ്രാധാന്യം ഉള്ള കാലഘട്ടം ആണ് അദ്ദേഹം തന്റെ മറുപടികളിൽ വിവരിക്കുന്നത്. തൂലിക യൂണിക്കൊഡ് ഫോണ്ടും വരമൊഴി ട്രാൻസ്‌ലിറ്ററെഷൻ പ്രൊഗ്രാമും ഉപയോഗിച്ച് മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയയെ പിച്ചവെച്ച് നടത്താൻ ശ്രമിച്ച കാര്യങ്ങൾ അദ്ദെഹം ഇതിൽ വിവരിക്കുന്നുണ്ട്. വന്ന വഴികളെ നമുക്ക് മറക്കാതിരിക്കാം. വിനോദുമായുള്ള സംവാദം താഴെ. ------------------------------------------------------------ As I warned you in my earlier email there isn't a long or very interesting story behind the birth of Malayalam Wikipedia. And I do not consider the small part I might have played all that significant. The early days were lonely. There were hardly any contributors. There are various reasons for this which I can tell you in more detail below. Perhaps the most interesting technology bit in this story is how improved support for Malayalam script (in all operating systems, in particular, in Microsoft Windows) and widespread access to the Internet were instrumental in the growth of blogs and Wikipedia. Both these prerequisites for growth were absent when Malayalam Wikipedia started. The role played by Unicode standardization of Malayalam script in making ml.wikipedia possible and more generally for non-specialists to create blogs and other articles in Malayalam and put them online is no small matter. Unicode <http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode>, as you might be aware, is an effort to standardize and represent all scripts, living and dead. In the early days of Malayalam Wikipedia, Unicode standard for Malayalam script was still evolving (there was much confusion about several aspects, especially chillaksharangal). Also, what standard was available was not correctly supported by any of the available platforms (Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac) or the browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer etc). So viewing pages in Malayalam correctly was still a bit of a challenge, let alone editing articles in Malayalam. In those days, perhaps the only people who were putting content online were our newspapers who were all using their own proprietary fonts. All international wikipedia projects used Unicode in whatever form was available for the language at the time. So it was a bit of a challenge to get ml.wikipedia to a large audience and to get them to contribute. Besides editing a few random initial articles (Onam, Malayalam script, Sree Narayana Guru, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, EMS etc.) I also tried to make it easier for people to read and write articles in the new ml.wikipedia. But there were very few takers because the effort involved was perhaps beyond a small technically oriented group. Ultimately it was the expansion of broadband access coupled with support of Malayalam Unicode support in Microsoft Windows and (perhaps to a lesser degree in) Linux which led to the growth of blogging and this in turn fed the growth of Malayalam Wikipedia. All these were still several years ahead when I was editing my first page on Wikipedia. But even at that point it was very clear that it was just a matter time before Malayalam Wikipedia would thrive. I cannot think of any one person who inspired me at that time. I was starting my PhD at Berkeley at the time. Perhaps I was a little homesick. As I said there were very few who were around me who spoke Malayalam. I benefited enormously from Cibu C <https://plus.google.com/105823853620118597247 Johny <https://plus.google.com/105823853620118597247>'s V<https://sites.google.com/site/cibu/ aramozhi <https://sites.google.com/site/cibu/> transliteration software. Without it it would have been an extremely onerous task and I doubt I would have gone ahead with it. Another thing which helped a lot were the very good Thoolika Unicode fonts<http://www.supersoftweb.com/ThoolikaUnicode.aspx> developed and made freely available by Supersoft in Thiruvanathapuram (I believe the name of the person running this place is Ajayalal). The alternative to these fonts was a very basic and poor font from Microsoft. But at the time Microsoft was working towards improving their support for Indian scripts and they had made some patches available to the software which I used. Unfortunately the support for Malayalam in Linux was poor. So even though for all other purposes I was a Linux user I had to turn to Microsoft Windows to edit the Wikipedia. Ultimately it was the expansion of broadband access coupled with support of Malayalam Unicode support in Microsoft Windows which led to the growth of blogging and this in turn fed into the growth of Malayalam Wikipedia. All these were still several years ahead when I was editing my first page on Wikipedia. I had some communication with Cibu on the font issues and several email exchanges with others on problems with how Microsoft and others were incorrectly interpreting the Unicode standard as it existed then. Unicode for Malayalam was still evolving and the issue of how to support our chillanksharangal was still unclear. One reason for the lack of clarity was that to a large extent all India scripts were being treated together by Unicode (mostly based on the ISCII standard which Government of India had developed over several years). The issues which were mostly linguistic than technical and there were enough technically competent people already involved that I did not do anything more than following the developments to ensure that Wikipedia conformed to the evolving standard. Most of these issues have now been resolved (though not without some controversy<http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/SMC/AtomicChilluIsUnacceptable ). I also had chats with my brother (Manoj Prabhakaran) who was doing his PhD in Computer Science at Princeton at the time. He used to encourage me though he hardly participated in ml.wikipedia. Part of the reason, I believe, was a complete lack of Malayalam support in Apple Mac computers which he uses. At a later stage we got together to improve this. We wrote the code to make a popular Malayalam Unicode font work in Apple Mac computers. https://sites.google.com/site/macmalayalam/ 3. അന്ന് നേരിട്ട പ്രശ്‌നങ്ങള്‍ എന്തൊക്കെയായിരുന്നു ? There were technical and non-technical problems. I described most of the technical problems above. To summarize, there was practically no support for Malayalam Unicode scripts in any of the available platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac), moreover none of the browsers directly rendered Malayalam script correctly unless the users put some effort into it. You can still read my attempts at explaining how to setup their computer so that one can read the articles written in Malayalam and write their own articles: http://goo.gl/RuIdj The non-technical problem was of course the lack of other volunteers. But this needed a solution to the technical problems and several years of organic growth after that. > 4. ഏത് സോഫ്ട്‌വേര്‍ ഉപകരണങ്ങളാണ് മലയാളത്തില്‍ അത്തരമൊരു സംരംഭം തുടങ്ങാന്‍ > താങ്കള്‍ക്ക് തുണയായത്? I explained most of this already. To summarize, Varamozhi from Cibu C Johny, Thoolika Unicode font from Supersoft, Microsoft Windows with their support for Indian scripts and to a slightly lesser extent Linux which I used for almost everything other than editing in Malayalam. > 5. പിന്നീട് താങ്കള്‍ എന്തുകൊണ്ട് ആ സംരംഭത്തില്‍ സജീവമല്ലാതായി? I never planned to devote a whole lot of time to this project. My hope was one I set it up and explain on the website how to contribute (which software to use and how and the etiquette of participating in Wikipedia), a few of those who stumble upon the website would start contributing. I was extremely over optimistic as it turned out in terms of how quickly the community of contributors would grow; I explained some of the reasons above. But in the longer run what I had anticipated did come to pass. [also see answer below] > 6. വിക്കിപീഡിയ (മലയാളം) യുടെ ഇപ്പോഴത്തെ വളര്‍ച്ചയെ താങ്കള്‍ എങ്ങനെ > വിലയിരുത്തുന്നു? Though the growth spurt came a little late, the phenomenal growth of ml Wikipedia hardly surprises me and is something I expected all along. Reasons as I see it: we have a very educated population and a decent proportion is literate about computers and the Internet. > 7. മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയയുടെ ഇപ്പോഴത്തെ അവസ്ഥയില്‍ താങ്കള്‍ തൃപ്തനാണോ, > അല്ലെങ്കില്‍, അതിന്റെ കാരണം ഒന്ന് വിശദീകരിക്കാമോ. Most definitely. I have watched ml.wikipedia grow strictly from the sidelines and never actively followed or was involved in the various difficult discussions, compromises, and decisions which are inevitably needed in a project like this which involves a large and growing number of volunteers. So I won't try to comment on any specific directions ml.wikipedia did or did not take in the last several years. *8.* Could you also write about how the actual transition happened from The Feb 2002 is perhaps when wikipedia initiated .com stubs for several languages. I started editing the .com and within a matter of days (or weeks, I don't remember) the transition to .org happened. I do not know whether the history was also moved, but I suspect it was. I wasn't really in any touch with anyone in the larger Wikipedia (though I seem to vaguely remember contacting them or planning to contact them for becoming an admin for ml.wikipedia! but since I could do pretty much everything I wanted to without becoming an admin I didn't pursue it). The transition itself happened automatically and .com started redirecting to .org. ------------------------------------------ വിനോദ് നിലവിൽ മുംബൈയിൽ TIFR-ൽ ആണ്. http://www.tcs.tifr.res.in/~vinodmp/അദ്ദേഹത്തിനു എല്ലാ വിധ ആശംസകളും നേരുന്നു. ഷിജു _______________________________________________ Wikiml-l is the mailing list for Malayalam Wikimedia Projects email: Wikiml-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Website: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiml-l To stop receiving messages from Wikiml-l please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/options/wikiml-l