Hello WikiMedians,<br><br>With great pleasure let me inform you about the <b>Malayalam Wikimedia users meetup</b>. Today <b>(2010 April 17) Malayalam Wikimedians</b> are coming together for the 3rd wikimeetup at <a href="http://www.rajagiri.edu/">RajaGiri College of Social Sciences, Kalamassery, Ernakulam</a>. The first malayalam wikimeetup was happened in 2007 Decemver 31, and the second meetup was in 2008 October 31. <br>
<br><br>We are extremely happy to inform you about some of the major things happening as a part of this meetup.<br><br>1. <b>We are releasing a Malayalam Wikipedia CD</b> that contain 500 articles selected from the 12,000 articles that were available in Malayalam Wikipedia during 2010 March. <br>
<br>Please note that we are not releasing an offline version of malayalam wiki articles. It is a customized version of articles very much similar to the English Wikipedia on CD <br>(<a href="http://wikipediaondvd.com/">http://wikipediaondvd.com/</a>). We have provided many other additional facilities/addons that are applicable to Malayalam language on this CD. I will provide you the link to download this CD after we release the CD at 3 PM Indian standard time. <br>
<br>With the release of this CD, we have become the first Indian language WikiMdedia foundation Wiki releasing such a CD. Also, I assume that no other non-latin languages tried this due to the number of technical hurdles that need to over come while working with non-latin languages. <br>
<br><b>We have developed a dedicated application (in GNU/Linux) for creating this CD. </b>I will share you the details of this software as soon as it is available for community development. I will write a separate mail regarding the efforts that went behind the creation of this CD.<br>
<br><br>2.<b> We are setting up a new website for coordinating the various activities of Malayalam Wikimedians.</b> I will share the link soon. The CD version of Malayalam Wikipedia will be avilable for download from this site later today.<br>
<br><br>3. <b>We are releasing a printed book (in Malayalam language) that contain 25 frequently asked questions about Wiki, Wikipedia, and Malayalam Wikipedia. </b>I think if this docuemnt is translated to English, many other Indian languages can reuse it. Requeting the help of wikimedians to translate it to English and available it to all. I will provide you the link to download this book later today.<br>
<br><br>The production cost of CD and the book is sponsored by<a href="http://www.itschool.gov.in/"> IT@school</a> and the meetup is sponsored by number of NGO's including <a href="http://www.space-kerala.org/">SPACE</a>.<br>
<br><br><b>We are trying for the live streaming of this event.</b> The link will be provided as soon as it is available. <br><br><br>I will share more details about the meetup later today. <br><br><br>Regards<br><br>Shiju Alex<br>