<p>Hi, here is the <span>report</span> of the 3rd Odia Wikipedia
Workshop, Cuttack, 2011, April 03.</p>
<p>The 3rd Odia Wikipedia Academy has been organized on 17April 2011 at
Image
Institute of Technology & Management, Cuttack. This was the second
outreach
academy of Odia Wikipedia in Odisha and the first one organized in the
Silver City,
Cuttack in order to create an awareness about odia wikipedia and to
motivate common mass from different educational
and social background to use the same. Odia Wikipedia, an online
encyclopedia with a substantial motive of making knowledge freely
available to the masses in Odia Language, was started way back in 2002.
It was among the first four Indian regional language wikipedia, other
three being Asamese, Malayalam, & Punjabi. But due to the dearth of
proper awareness and activism there was a snail pace movement for almost
8 years. Shiju Alex of Malyalam Wikipedia introduced Odia Wiki projects
to many fellow Odias which later
motivated them to recapitulate the Odia Wiki movement through the first
Odia Wikipedia
Academy, conducted in Bengaluru on 6 March, 2011<br></p>
<p>Sambidhan Mohanty, Founder, Inmohven along with Ashutosh Kar, a
Bangalore based software engineer and an alumni of the prestigious
National Institute of Design formally inaugurated the event. A Video
Tutorial which illustrates and demonstrates the usage & the complete
know-how of odia wikipedia was launched on this occasion. A FAQ Booklet
was distributed
among the first time participants of the Wikipedia Workshop. Cuttack
based w<span style="border-collapse:collapse;font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px">ikipedian Srikant Kedia took active part in facilitating the event. </span>The
whole Academy/Workshop
was conducted in 2 main sections, in the first session Mr. Kar & Mr.
Mohanty introduced Odia Wikpedia to the
audience, giving them a brief overview about the history, development
and current status of Wikipedia Movement. The
second session, conducted by Srikant Kedia, focused on how to type in
Odia using the
transliteration/Inscript tool, which has been incorporated recently in
odia wikipedia; solving typing
issues, searching existing articles, creating articles and editing for
improvement of old article. He also demonstrated the technique of adding
content to the articles by using the commonly used syntaxes, the
methodology for adding pictures and other media
files to odia wikipedia. This session was followed by an interactive
session in which the audience interacted with the
demonstrators and among themselves. Several discussions based on several
major
issues were carried out as well. The participants included students from
the various management & engineering colleges, entrepreneurs,
journalists, writers & College students.
At the end of the session contributors came forward with several
suggestions which included motivating more number of students and
freelancers to contribute to Odia Wikipedia.There was a discussion on
how to build a stronger community and the ways to be implemented for
improving the articles both in terms of a standard quality and quantity.
The participants also put forth their suggestions on the ways to tackle
vandalism and monitor the wiki user's activities. Many such activism
& events have been planned to be conducted in the coming future with
the involvement of people from all fields of life, who are passionate
about the development of Odia language on the 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 714 articles in Odia Wikipedia, many of them are yet to
be refined & enhanced with more information and references through larger participation. <br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Thanks & Regards,<br>Srikant Kedia (User:Odisha1)<br>Odia (Oriya) Wikipedia Community<br>
<br><span><span>Odia Wikipedia Support Mail ID - <a href="mailto:odiawiki@gmail.com" target="_blank">odiawiki@gmail.com</a></span></span><br>
Facebook- <a href="http://facebook.com/OdiaWiki" target="_blank">facebook.com/OdiaWiki</a><br>Tweet @OdiaWiki<br><br>