Dear All,
We started meetups around Kannada Wikipedia yesterday. We celebrated Wiki
11 with a long awaited meetup session. 9 people turned up Including Mr.
Arjun Rao chavla. Kalmane Koffee's small little corner turned out to be a
hot discussion point in few minutes. As we had few new editors around us,
Introduction was given on how and why wikipedia can be the best platform to
start sharing knowledge. Naveen and Prabhodh had joined us from FSMK to
share their commitment to work with Wikipedia, and also explained why they
would look for support groups to work on these projects. Naveen explained
how support groups can help us grow steadily.
Discussion continued around topics like 1. Complaints that we hear about
Kannada wikipedia 2. Why we don't see regular editors 3. Support groups for
those who seek help 4. Unattended support requests 5. Unavailable community
around wikipedia to welcome and greet new editors 6. Why should new editors
find Wikipedia Interesting 7. How build the community to be more active in
terms of building the missing support team 7. Special projects that we can
take up to make things Interesting around Kannada Wikipedia 8. Personal
experiences about editing wiki 9. How we can prepare ourselves to better
Kannada wiki state by July 12th on which we will be celebrating our 9th
anniversary and so on.
Abhiram from Sanskrit wiki joined us to explain why he hopped in to Kannada
wikipedia and started helping people around it and how Sanskrit community
working at present.
While Naveen and Prabhod mentioned about their monthly magazine for FSMK
not seeing enough articles from the FOSS community, I got an instant idea
of creating interest in people around us to work on a specific topic for
the month and collate and contribute that to Kannada wikipedia and make it
available / reachable to magazine readers. This can go along with a story
on how the community could go ahead and use Wikipedia to build a detailed
document to feature on its Magazine. This will inspire not only techies but
also those who read the magazine to start contributing.
Shalini, Pradeep who work at Serverlots on a research project called Alipi (
http://janastu.org/technoscience/index.php/Alipi) which is a re-narration
project of the hub understood how wikipedia works and new possibilities of
reaching out to community.
Raghavendra, a linguist & a journalist joined the meetup happily to
understand how he can help us better quality of Articles contributed by
Google Translation team in which he had worked earlier.
Arjun shared his learnings from Telugu wikipedia and encouraged us to find
the new possibilities to engage more people on Kannada Wikipedia.
We were expecting Thejesh GN who was found to be the first Kannada Wiki
editor in early days of Kannada wikipedia, but unfortunately he couldn't
make it for the event. Wish to meet him in upcoming meetups along with
others who missed it.
Before i close this report: Here is something that we had to talk about
during our meetup.
A mail that I received from one of our top most Kannada wiki contributor
Mr. Holalkere Lakshmi venkatesh. On request to reach out to Bangalore
wikipedian's during our first meetup, he had sent an email about Kannada
wikipedia from Mumbai. Kannada wikipedia's present state and how he wishes
to to see in future could be found in his email. I'm sharing it here along
with this email for all to see the.
-----------
Here are some of my wishes about how Kannada Wikipedia should proceed in
the coming years !
The truths about kannada wikipedia :
We were sleeping almost from centuries, with out improving our mother
tounge, keeping in view of some totally unrealistic goals. Even when we
watch some kannada programmes on Chandana, the Anchor will be narrating the
events, etc; in high language, with lots of adjuctives added to it, more
than it deserves. Every thing is superficial non realistic and almost not
practical for the present day situation.
Let us start, from here.
What is our role ?
kannada is rich, we hear. But is it true ? yes and no. Provided if we
contribute a bit to its growth. We are supposed to read a lot to enrich our
knowledge and later find some words new, or borrow some from some where,
and see whether it fits to the context.
Pro. G. T. Narayana rao, T.R.Anantharamu, Pro. HRRRao, Dr. Pavanaja, Hegde,
and others so many of them have been doing a great job in finding some
equivalent Scientific words for the writers. We have to be in costant
touch of their work. Later some thing we have to contribute.
This is not easy. First let us contribute some articles in kannda
wikipedia. They can be biographies, and about the people next door who are
doing some good work, they might not have Ph.Ds or M.Techs added to the end
of their names. Doesn't matter. We have to read them throughly.
What we do when we get a doubt about some word or place or name ? Refer
Dictionary, or Encyclopedia, or ask some one . Right ?
*But just a click distance we have the entire world is unfolded infront of
us- free of charge.*
**
*Why not use it ?*
Here the English wikipedia comes to our mind immediately. It is well
developed and has real wealth of information. That is well managed by
competent people with dedication hard work, with upto date information and
love for the language. *That is how it is treated as a full enclyclopedia.*
In Kannada, and many of our regional languages, we do not have one. Why ?
We are not striving hard to have one. Create one.
We do not love our mother tongue. We won't read kannada literature. We do
not contribute to it. Earlier days during our time, letter writing was
there. But that great art has gone to dust bin; and our skill in writing a
good sentence, or narrating a story to our own children has a back seet,
and the Idiot box has taken over that place ! We are struggling with SMS
language skill.
That is part of history. What we have been facing from our childhood days
to this day.
So, no one has tobe blamed.
We are the makers and destroyers of our own follies.
Let us add something to the already existing articles.
Just like in English enclyopedia, we have to develop on the same lines.
Gradually we can go stronger by innovating it.
*The new generation boys and girls are having lots of skills as for
Computer technology and skill in making the things much faster than the old
timers. This plus point should be encashed.*
Unless you have kannda knowledge you can not make a good article. We have
appropriate words to match the English words. Only way is bring the english
words as they are in kannada, and try to borrow words from hindi, urdu,
Tamil, Telugu, Bengali etc; they can borrow some from kannada.
Rest is when one starts writing in wikipedia one explores the necessity of
finding the new ways and avenues !
Good luck and have a nice time.
I am a blogger. That way, I could improve my language skills.
*When an old timer (68), with out the Computer skills whatsoever, can make
some thing in wikipedia, you can do wonders !*
Wish you best of luck,
My real name is :
(ಹೊಳಲ್ಕೆರೆ ರಂಗರಾವ್ ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮೀವೆಂಕಟೇಶ್)
ನನ್ನ ತಾಯಿಯವರ ಹೆಸರು : ರಾಧಮ್ಮ ಮತ್ತು ತಂದೆಯವರ ಹೆಸರು : ರಂಗರಾಯರು.
I use the following names while writing in Wikipedia.
-Radhatanaya(Purely for kannada wikipedia articles)
-Rangakuvara(Use this name when I write for English wikipedia, some
articles have been written in kannada also)
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Wiki meetup page is available here:-
http://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ:ಸಮ್ಮಿಲನ/೧
It was fun, interesting and there was much sharing... Wish to see more of
this with growing Kannada Wikipedia!
--
With Best Regards,
Omshivaprakash.H.L | ಓಂ ಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್ ಎಚ್. ಎಲ್ | ॐ शिवप्रकाश् एच्. एल्
Chair, Kannnada SIG
Wikimedia India Chapter
[image: File:Wikimedia India logo.svg] <http://wiki.wikimedia.in/>
Phone: 91- 9902026518
[[User:Omshivaprakash]] kn: en: meta: comm: