<div class="gmail_quote"><p>Hi, here is the report of the 2nd Odia Wikipedia Workshop, Bhubaneswar, 2011April03<br></p><p>The 2nd Odia Wikipedia Academy has been organized on 3April 2011 at
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bhubaneswar. This was the first outreach academy
of Odia Wikipedia in Odisha to bring an awareness andmotivate common
mass from different educational and social background. Odia Wikipedia
was started way back in 2002 and was one of the four Indian languages,
Asamese, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi. But because of the lack of proper
awareness and activism there was a snail movement for almost 8 years.
Shiju introduced Odia Wiki projects to many fellow Odias which later
motivated them to bring the Wiki movement back to the first Odia
Wikipedia Academy, conducted in Bengaluru on. Odia Wikipedia is an
online encyclopedia in Odia language to make knowledge available freely
for masses.</p>
<p>Dhanada Mishra of Human Resource Development Management Studies has
formally inaugurated this event. A FAQ Booket was released by and
distributed among the first time participants of the Wikipedia Workshop.
Wikipedians Shiju Alex and Tinu Cherian were also took</p>
<p>active part in facilitating the event. The workshop was conducted by
Odia Wikiali (Odia version of an Wikipedian/User) Subha Pa. The whole
Academy/Workshop was conducted in 2 main sections, Subha introduced Odia
Wikipedia to the audience, said about the history and the development
and current status. The second session was focused on how to type in
Odia using the transliteration/Inscript tool which was newly
incorporated, solving typing issues, searching existing articles,
creating articles and editing for enhancement of old article. In this
session he has demonstrated how to add content using the commonly used
syntaxes, adding pictures and other media files. This was an interactive
session where the audience interacted with the demonstrator and each
other and several discussions went on based on the major issues. Several
participants from from the nearby management colleges, engineering
students, entrepreneurs, college students have also participated. At the
end of the session a lotion based core group of active users was formed
which will be promoting the Wikipedia movement and bringing more and
more contributors to enhance it, make it more user friendly and make it
reach to masses. Contributors came with several suggestions such as
motivating more and more students and freelancers to contribute and also
monitor the ongoing activities and discussing them through the mailing
list of Odia Wikipedia. [ <a href="http://bit.ly/ormail" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/ormail</a>
]. More and more such activism are expected in the coming future with
the involvement of people who are eager for the development of Odia
language on web. Odia Wikipedia can be accessed at <a href="http://or.wikipedia.org" target="_blank">or.wikipedia.org</a> and
the Facebook page for Odia Wikipedia is <a href="http://facebook.com/OdiaWiki" target="_blank">facebook.com/OdiaWiki</a></p>
<p>As of now there are 700 articles in Odia Wikipedia, but many of them
are to be enhanced with more information and references. There was a
discussion about how to build a strong community to enhance the articles
in both quality and standard wise, stop vandalism and monitor the
activities.</p><p style="font-family: arial black,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bhubaneswar_Odia_Workshop_2011April03">Photos</a><span style="font-size: 125%; font-weight: bold;"> • </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=492338&id=174457049272002">In News </a><span style="font-size: 125%; font-weight: bold;">•</span> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/OdiaWiki">Facebook</a></b></p>
<p>
</p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="6"><b><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><div><b><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left; font-size: small;"><b><font size="6">ସୁଭ<span style="background-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><font color="#cccccc">ପା</font></span></font></b></span></span></span></b><b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-style: normal;"><b><font color="#cccccc"><font size="4">SubhashishPanigrahi</font></font></b></span></span></span></span></b></div>
<div><b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><div style="text-align: left; font-size: small;"><b><font size="4"><span style="font-family: 'arial black',sans-serif;">ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ</span></font></b><br></div></span></b>_______________________________________________<br>
Wikipedia Odia (Oriya) mailing list<br><font color="#000000"><a href="mailto:wikipedia-or@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">wikipedia-or@lists.wikimedia.org</a><br><a href="https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-or" target="_blank">https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-or</a></font><br>
<b style="color: rgb(102, 102, 204);"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://facebook.com/OdiaWiki" target="_blank">facebook.com/OdiaWiki</a></span></b><br><i>Tweet</i> <b style="color: rgb(0, 204, 204);"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">@OdiaWiki</span></b></div>
</span></b></font></div><br>