[Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipedia Embassy

Sat Jun 26 17:40:20 UTC 2010

We have some major issues here. Not all Indian Language WikiMedians are
subscribed to this list. In fact many *doesn't know about the existence of
this list* itself. So some of us may need to visit the respective wiki and
make them aware about these type of facilities.

It is definitely not good to ignore small languages. Their user base can
definitely be improved. Active wiki communities can help them in many ways.

Once the proposed Embassy pages are created and the actual interaction
started happening between different Indian language wiki projects, we can
easily start adding the best practices of various Indian language wikipedias
in MetaWiki.

Shiju

On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 10:35 PM, Ganesh Krishnamurthy <
ganeshkmurthy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Shiju,
>
> Good topic, agree on the need for a Embassy page on each wiki. I think it
> will be a good idea to setup a page on meta  that showcases the best
> practices in various Indian language wikipedias. This will be useful for
> smaller wikipedias that have limited resources. It can also serve as central
> place for discussion. WP:COUNCIL does similar job on English Wikipedia to
> help out inter-wikiproject communication.
>
> Regards,
> Ganesh
>
>
>
> On Jun 25, 2010, at 12:30 PM, Shiju Alex <shijualexonline at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> 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>http://as.wikipedia.org)
>    - Bengali ( <http://bn.wikipedia.org>http://bn.wikipedia.org)
>    - Bhojpuri ( <http://bh.wikipedia.org>http://bh.wikipedia.org)
>    - Bishnupriya Manipuri ( <http://bpy.wikipedia.org>
>    http://bpy.wikipedia.org)
>    - Gujarathi ( <http://gu.wikipedia.org>http://gu.wikipedia.org)
>    - Hindi ( <http://hi.wikipedia.org>http://hi.wikipedia.org)
>    - Kannada ( <http://kn.wikipedia.org>http://kn.wikipedia.org)
>    - Kashmiri ( <http://ks.wikipedia.org>http://ks.wikipedia.org)
>    - Malayalam ( <http://ml.wikipedia.org>http://ml.wikipedia.org)
>    - Marathi ( <http://mr.wikipedia.org>http://mr.wikipedia.org)
>    - Nepali ( <http://ne.wikipedia.org>http://ne.wikipedia.org)
>    - Nepal Bhasha/Newari ( <http://new.wikipedia.org>
>    http://new.wikipedia.org)
>    - Odia (Oriya) ( <http://or.wikipedia.org>http://or.wikipedia.org)
>    - Pali ( <http://pi.wikipedia.org>http://pi.wikipedia.org)
>    - Punjabi ( <http://pa.wikipedia.org>http://pa.wikipedia.org)
>    - Sanskrit ( <http://sa.wikipedia.org>http://sa.wikipedia.org)
>    - Sindhi ( <http://sd.wikipedia.org>http://sd.wikipedia.org)
>    - Tamil ( <http://ta.wikipedia.org>http://ta.wikipedia.org)
>    - Telugu ( <http://te.wikipedia.org>http://te.wikipedia.org)
>    -  Urdu ( <http://ur.wikipedia.org>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%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%80%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE:%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%AE%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%B4%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%8D_%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%82%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D_%28Tamil_Embassy%29>
>    http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%80%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE:%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%AE%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%B4%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%8D_%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%82%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D_%28Tamil_Embassy%29
>    - Malayalam Wikipedia Embassy here:
>    <http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_embassy>
>    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
>
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