[Wikimediaindia-l] Sharing insights and experiences from Indian language wiki communities - Malayalam

[Shiju Alex]

 Dear All,

As part of my discussions with Indic language Wikipedians I spoke with few
Malayalam wikimedians also. Malayalam wikimedians spoke about their editing
experiences, their vision about ml wiki projects, and other related topics.
I have summarized the discussions in meta wiki.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Indic_Languages/Malayalam/Discussions/2011

Malayalam with more than 3.5 crore speakers is one of the 22 scheduled
languages of India. Malayalam is primarily spoken in the Indian state of
Kerala. There are some very interesting features of Kerala, from a
Wikimedia perspective.  It has amongst the highest rates of literacy in the
country.  It also has a (relatively) high Internet reach.  Unlike most
states, there is (relatively) lower urban rural divide in Kerala.  In fact,
the term "rurban" is sometimes used to refer to the state.

I have been personally associated with Malayalam Wikipedia for the past 5
years and it has been a labour of love for me.  Along the way, I have seen
this community growing from just 3 active editors to more than 90 active
editors now.

There are 2 particularly compelling chapters in the Malayalam Wikimedia
story.  The first is the huge importance and concerted efforts made for the
community development.  Personally, I think community development is the
single most important aspect for the growth of Indic wikimedia projects and
it is inspiring to see how this community has adopted it. Another really
noteworthy feature is the efforts made to retain existing editors.
 Malayalam Wikimedia has done this very successfully by starting
interesting Wikiprojects on specific subject areas.

Personally I had associated with lot of ml wiki outreach activities. When I
looked at the statistics recently, I found community had conducted more
than 20 wiki workshops across 14 districts of Kerala.  Then offline CD
release, photo events, numerous non-offfical wiki workshops that are
happening as part of blog meetings, introducing ml wiki projects during the
meeting of various social organizations, there are so many things happening
around. The involvement of government organizations and social
organizations is another noteworthy thing.

The activism in sister projects (Wikisource, wiktionary, and Wikiquotes) is
also noteworthy. I have seen sister projects (especially wikisource)
getting more attention than wikipedia and school students are involved in
adding content to wikisource.


Malayalam wikimedians have achieved a lot and there are lessons for the
other indic language communities from what the community had done.
 However, there is so so much that still needs to be done to build the
community, improve the quality and size of articles, and increase the reach
of ml wiki projects.

Kindly read the experience of Malayalam Wikimedians at:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Indic_Languages/Malayalam/Discussions/2011


Regards

Shiju
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