*Fyi* *Blog post on Tamil Wikimedia Contest*
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Noopur Raval <nraval(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 12:03 PM
Subject: [Blog]: Postcard from the Tamil Community
To: wikita-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Hey folks,
The Tamil Wikimedia Contest organized by User: Sodabottle and other members
of the Tamil community recently got over. As you are all aware, it
generated over 15,000 media files and got over 250 new contributors to
Commons. A detailed report was published at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Tamil_Wikimedians/TamilWiki_Media_Con…
There's also a blog post that we've been working on that takes a peek at
TWMC behind the scenes with inputs from the organizing team. It might be
really useful to any community planning to conduct a similar events in
future. You can read the post here:
http://blog.wikimedia.in/2012/04/17/postcard-from-the-tamil-community/.
It's a great story of how an off-the-cuff conversation between 2 editors
resulted in a massive community wide initiative - with participation of the
Tamil community (and other communities) from across the world, the kind of
intense efforts, the use of technology enablers and last - and most
certainly not the least - some fantastic images (a sample of which can be
seen at http://www.tawp.in/r/33zx) - which have now been used to create or
improve articles (6122 on Tamil Wiktionary, 1659 on Tamil Wikipedia and
more).
Do go through the story and add comments. Please also share it with
others. Don't forget to use the images to improve articles on your
Wikipedia! (They are all available on Commons at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:TamilWiki_Media_Contest)
I am thankful to Natkeeran for the wonderful story idea and to Sodabottle,
Logicwiki and others for your inputs, insights and times!
Regards
Noopur
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Noopur Raval
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Noopur Raval
Hi Folks
Reminder about the IRC today (9pm IST on Thursday April 5th) Do join us using this link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office.
Here is what we would like to discuss today - which we shall do for the first 45 minutes and then throw it open for 15 minutes for any other topics that anyone wants to discuss related to India Program.
You may have noticed that we are increasing our emphasis on Wikisource. Please see Shiju's post on using simple technology to support digitazation (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Indic_Languages/Digitization_o…) and Noopur's story of the Gujarati Wikisource (http://blog.wikimedia.in/2012/04/04/realizing-the-dreams-of-communities-3-y…)
In addition, Shiju has been engaged with other communities on how to start or accelerate their respective language Wikisources.
Wikisource has some very important characteristics that make it attractive.
> It's a (relatively) easier way for newbies to start contributing than the respective Wikipedia
> It's a great way to reach out to language lovers - and love for a language is an important motivator for contribution (on this and other projects)
> There is a much lower gender gap on Wikisource, and it's easy for a wider age group to contribute
> It's more "accessible" as an entry point to newbies because it has less policies than other projects
> It's can act as a gateway to other projects
In today's IRC, we'd like to talk through the work that's happening on Wikisource by many communities, discuss best practices and provide a channel of support for anyone interested in joining the project from any language.
Speak soon.
hisham