One of the important feature that separates Indian WikiMedia community from
the WikiMedia communities of other countries is its diversity of languages.
There are at least 20 Indian languages in which WikiMedia projects are
available
Following are those languages.
- Assamese (
http://as.wikipedia.org)
- Bengali (
http://bn.wikipedia.org)
- Bhojpuri (
http://bh.wikipedia.org)
- Bishnupriya Manipuri (
http://bpy.wikipedia.org)
- Gujarathi (
http://gu.wikipedia.org)
- Hindi (
http://hi.wikipedia.org)
- Kannada (
http://kn.wikipedia.org)
- Kashmiri (
http://ks.wikipedia.org)
- Malayalam (
http://ml.wikipedia.org)
- Marathi (
http://mr.wikipedia.org)
- Nepali (
http://ne.wikipedia.org)
- Nepal Bhasha/Newari (
http://new.wikipedia.org)
- Odia (Oriya) (
http://or.wikipedia.org)
- Pali (
http://pi.wikipedia.org)
- Punjabi (
http://pa.wikipedia.org)
- Sanskrit (
http://sa.wikipedia.org)
- Sindhi (
http://sd.wikipedia.org)
- Tamil (
http://ta.wikipedia.org)
- Telugu (
http://te.wikipedia.org)
- Urdu (
http://ur.wikipedia.org)
(*NOTE:* Urdu, Nepali, Tamil, and some other languages are official
languages in more than one country.)
All these languages use *non-latin scripts* and all of them belong either to
*Aryan or Dravidian language family*. So there are many community related
(for example, advocacy) and computing related issues (for example, script
rendering, usability) that are common to many of these languages. Hence
when it comes to computing and community related issues there are many
solutions that can be shared between different language communities.
But currently, there is no communication happening between different Indian
language wiki communities. Because of this, many wiki communities are
unaware about the wiki activities that is happening outside their wiki.
Big Indian Language Wikipedias like Tamil, Bengali, Tamil and so on have
overcome many of the issues since they have large user base. But that is not
the case with small Wikipedias like Odiya, Assamese, or some other smaller
wikipedias. The *number of active users* of these wikipedias is very less
(In some case it is null). Even though it is the duty of the respective
language community to build its wiki community, it may not happen overnight
due to number of reasons. Hence big Indian language wiki communities can
help them to develop a community. For these, we need to have frequent
interactions between different wiki communities. But we don't have a common
forum in each wiki that can be used for these type of discussions.
Hence I request all Indian language Wikipedias to start an *Embassy page* in
their respective Wiki. This Embassy page can be used for the inter Wiki
related discussions. Tamil and Malayalam Wikipedia have started Embassy long
back and we have some healthy discussions happening among us both inside and
outside wiki.
- Tamil Wikipedia Embassy here:
http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%…
- Malayalam Wikipedia Embassy here:
http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_embassy
Some other languages like Hindi, Marathi, Telugu also have Embassy.
I request all Indian Language Wiki communities to create such a page in
their wiki that can be used as forum for the type of discussions that I
mentioned above. Some of the best practices that can be followed while
creatinng such a page is:
- *Appoint some ambassadors* in each wiki who are interested in Indian
language inter wiki activities. For Malayalam, we have selected a group of
people selected for these.
- *Communicate only in English* on this page so that different language
Wikipedians can participate in the discussions.
- *Place a link to the Embassy page on the side bar* (Make sure this link
is NOT localized and it is displayed as *Embassy* itself). Please see
Tamil and Malayalam Wikipedia for example.
May be in future, we can think about having a Indian wiki conference for the
Wikimedians of different Indian languages. That time special emphasis need
to be given to the small wikipedias.
Regards
Shiju