Dear Wikimedians,
Today we have released first version of FAQ
for Hindi Wikipedia
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hindi_Wiki_Projects_FAQ_Version_1.0.…>.With
a nice effort of malayalam wiki community they translated their FAQ from
malayalam to english.That translation helped us a lot for preparing FAQ for
Hindi Wikipedia.Special thanks to Shiju Alex and Junad pv who gave this FAQ
its Final pdf form.
Thank you and Regards
Mayur
I am happy to share a tiny web application to help people get started with
using Indian languages on Computers in public places, using wiki sites.
Check it out
http://gyanpad.appspot.com/
Cheers
Arjun
Dear Indic language wikipedians,
The logos of some of the Indic language wikipedias are updated recently.
Following are those wikipedias:
- Marathi - http://mr.wikipedia.org/
- Kannada - http://sa.wikipedia.org/
- Sanskrit - http://kn.wikipedia.org/
- Odia (Oriya) - http://or.wikipedia.org/
Among this, the Odia wikipedia logo is updated yesterday and is done by a
new wikipedian. Thanks to Subhashish who started editing in Odia wikipedia
recently. He had done a wonderful job.
The logos for the following language wikipedias still need to be updated.
- Assamese - http://as.wikipedia.org
- Bhojpuri - http://bh.wikipedia.org
- Bishnupriya Manipuri - http://bpy.wikipedia.org/
- Divehi - http://dv.wikipedia.org
- Gujarati - http://gu.wikipedia.org
- Hindi - http://hi.wikipedia.org
- Kashmiri - http://ks.wikipedia.org/
- Nepali - http://ne.wikipedia.org
- Pali - http://pi.wikipedia.org
- Punjabi - http://pa.wikipedia.org
- Sindhi - http://sd.wikipedia.org
- Tamil - http://ta.wikipedia.org
Hope the logos will be updated soon by the respective language community.
Kindly create a new logo, upload it to commons, and log a bug in bugzilla.
In case you require any assistance please contact me.
Shiju Alex
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline(a)gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 10:32 AM
Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Updating the logo of Indian Language Wikipedias
To: "Discussion list on Indian language projects of Wikimedia." <
wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Dear Indic language wikipedians,
As many of you know the default skin of wikipedias (including that of all
Indic language wikipedias) is moved to the new Vector skin some time back.
Please see the below mail that I sent to this list regrading this on *2010
July 1*.
As some of you know, along with this update, the logo of wikipedia is also
updated. The current logo is available
here<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia/2.0>.
But even though almost 6 months had passed after this major update, only
Bengali <http://bn.wikipedia.org>, Malayalam
<http://ml.wikipedia.org>, Urdu<http://ur.wikipedia.org>,
and Telugu <http://te.wikipedia.org> wiki communities had took initiatives
to update the logo. The logo update is still pending for the following
Indian language wikis.
- Assamese - http://as.wikipedia.org
- Bhojpuri - http://bh.wikipedia.org
- Bishnupriya Manipuri - http://bpy.wikipedia.org/
- Divehi - http://dv.wikipedia.org
- Gujarati - http://gu.wikipedia.org
- Hindi - http://hi.wikipedia.org
- Kannada - http://kn.wikipedia.org/
- Kashmiri - http://ks.wikipedia.org/
- Marathi - http://mr.wikipedia.org
- Nepali - http://ne.wikipedia.org
- Oriya - http://or.wikipedia.org
- Pali - http://pi.wikipedia.org
- Punjabi - http://pa.wikipedia.org
- Sanskrit - http://sa.wikipedia.org
- Sindhi - http://sd.wikipedia.org
- Tamil - http://ta.wikipedia.org
Carry Bass (User:Bastique <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bastique>)
has took initiative to create the new logo for some of the Indian language
wikis. But for languages like Kannada, Oriya, and so on even that is
pending. Even if the new logo is created a bug needs to be filed by the
respective wiki community to change the logo. So for most of the Indian
wikis both these tasks are pending now.
I request the respective language communities to take initiatives to create
the new logo and file a bug for this update. The guidelines for creating the
new logo is listed at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks/Word_mark_crea…
Please write to me if any of the language communities require any type of
support regarding this.
Regards
Shiju Alex
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 06:43:08 +0200
From: shijualexonline(a)gmail.com
To: wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Updating the default skin of Indian Language
Wikipedias
Hi All,
As some of you already know, *Usability Team<http://usability.wikimedia.org>
* is driving the task of updating the default skin of all WikiMedia
Foundation wikis to a skin called
*Vector*<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vector>.
English Wikipedia and some other big wikis have already moved to *Vector
skin* some time back. Apart from the UI, the logo of Wikipedia is also
updated <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/wikipedia-in-3d/>.
Yesterday (2010 June 30) at 10:30 PM IST, some other wikis (that have
carried out the formalities required for the UI change) are also moved to
the new UI. Among this, 3 Indian Language Wikipedias are also there.
Following are those Indian Language wikipedias:
- Malayalam - http://ml.wikipedia.org
- Bengali - http://bn.wikipedia.org
- Telugu - http://te.wikipedia.org
Please note the new default skin and the new logo that are appearing on
these wikis. (You may need to clear the cache to see the changes. )
Now to move your language wiki to Vector, you have to perform the following
two major operations:
1. Update the logo of your wiki
2. Localize the Vector skin system messages
Logo update
For some languages, logo is already updated. See the list here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia/2.0
If your wiki's logo is missing from this list, then you need to create the
new logo based on the instructions listed on this page.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks/About_the_offi…
Localizing the Vector skin System messages
For the current update, you need to localize the Vector skin system
messages. To localize the system messages, use Translate wiki -
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Main_Page
The current Localization statistics of Vector skin system messages is
available here. http://translatewiki.net/wiki/User:GerardM/usability-stats
You can see that many Indian languages (for example, Tamil) are missing from
this list. The reason is, none of the Vector skin system messages are
localized for those languages. Even for the big Languages like Hindi and
Marathi the percentage of localized messages is very low.
So I request the respective Indian Language Wikipedia communities to take
required initiative to switch over to the new Skin. Usability team is
planning for next set of switch over by the end of July. So you have
almost one month to finish these tasks.
Once you finish the above tasks you need to:
- Let the community know about this upcoming update (Use the village
pump, Site Notice, Mailing list, and so on)
- Appoint some volunteers to answer the questions related to this
- Appoint an ambassador to collect the feedback/issues/bugs and report it
to the Usability Team.
Please let me know in case you require any support regarding this.
Regards
Shiju Alex
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list Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
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Hi,
Just a quick update on recent Tamil Wiki outreach efforts:
In the last 60 days, Tamil Wikipedians conducted 7 workshops / meetups.
1. December 28, 2010 - Mattakkalappu, SriLanka. First organized Wiki meetup
in SriLanka where Tamil is an official language and has millions of Tamils.
2. January 15, 2010 - Chennai, India. On the occasion of Ten Wiki.
3. January 16, 2010 - Toronto, Canada. The city has Srilankan Tamil
population in lakhs. There were smaller / informal Tamil Wiki intros in this
city even before this. Two of the most active Tamil Wikipedians reside in
Canada.
4. February 6, 2010 - Chennai, India.
5. February 20, 2010 - Trichy, India.
6. February 20, 2010 - Puduchery, India. First Wiki event in this Union
Territory of India. Tamil is an official language here and has Tamil
population in Lakhs.
7. February 26, 2010 - Coimbatore, India. (Students only event)
The next workshop is planned for March 6, 2010 near Trichy, India.
Pictures from these events can be seen at the sidebar links at
http://bit.ly/gveSnh
Some thoughts:
* Malayalam Wikians had such series of workshops all over recently and that
was certainly an inspiration for us. And that is the reason we share our
experience now for others.
* First few workshops happened in 2009. It was hard to arrange and frequency
was less. But once we start doing, we learn things, share resources and get
more people involved.
* We can't expect that every new workshop will bring immediate editors. I
have seen people starting editing after they keep hearing about Wiki
everywhere and often. So, this can be approached like an ad campaign. No one
runs to shop after seeing the ad. But it works later. Infact, we got a very
active editor after he listened to the event's audio recording posted. He
was in Mumbai and the event happened in Chennai. So it is always good to
document the events as much.
* Besides attracting new editors, it helps build rapport among existing
editors. New editors who attend the event are delighted by the friendship /
collaborative spirit by other editors. This gives them a sense of ownership
/ belonging for the project and start editing more and taking part in
organizing future events. One of our most active editor now is an English
Wikipedian who participated in a Tamil Wiki workshop. In his own words,
after seeing people's happiness to have content in Tamil, he started editing
Tamil Wikipedia more.
* People want to see faces and hear words directly. They are convinced in
person even if we have the same FAQ in Wikipedia website. When we give the
demo, they also learn that it is not so easy to edit as they thought.
* People who attend these workshops get impressed and invite us to conduct
workshop in their colleges / city and they arrange the venue and other
resources too. So, even though arranging first few events may be difficult,
later more people help.
* Participating in bigger events like book fairs, internet fairs, FOSS fairs
can only give limited scope to introduce in a very basic way to fast moving
crowd. But it is a good opportunity for Wikimedians to network with key
people working in other knowledge forums and certainly helps in promoting
the Wikipedia brand. More on this later.
* 2010 is a significant growth year for us and the growth rate in terms of
daily edits, new editors, active editors has almost doubled in last 6
months. We believe that these workshops and other outreach efforts done
before helped us achieve this in some way :)
Ravi
Hi,
I am Subhashish Panigrahi from Odia (Oriya) WIkipedia, a new mail list has
been created, anyone who want to take part can join the mail list at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-or
You can take part in the contribution of content for Odia Wikipedia please
go to http://or.wikipedia.org and sign up and start adding good articles.
Thanks and regards
ସୁଭ ପା / Subhashish Panigrahi
ଆସ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିକୁ ଆଗେଇନେବା
Hoi,
I blogged about using the mobile phone for the Indian languages. What I
learned is that some languages need to invest some time in order to get the
mobile interface to work for them. Please check out to what extend your
language is supported. ( xx.m.wikipedia.org where xx is your language code).
Thanks,
GerardM
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2011/02/supporting-mobile-phones-in-ind…
Achala, thanks for the post. It is very significant debate which should have taken place long ago.
i aggree with what narayana is saying. societies and cultures have to become global by retaining their indigenous identities and generic elements what make them what they are. the gung ho globalisation of knowledge should not and should not be allowed to bulldoze indegenous ways of understanding the world (it is much different from just knowledge). retaining indigenous viewpoints is fundamental to preserving indigenous knowledge.
this is invariably against the PoV policy of wikipedia. most wikipedians fail to understand even the element of neutrality is concieved from a particular point of view which is predominantly western. this kind of bulldozing of viewpoints especially on an online knowledge base best serves stategic and commercial interests of `big brothers' who refuse to get off our shoulders. more than that it poisons indigenous ways of compprehending the world.
every country has a constitution which is formulated with a disticnt point of view. a country like India has thousands of sub cultures and these cultures are not just about different clothing and cousine. They are about seeing the world from a distinct PoV. Indian history, politics and economy is about conflict between preveleged and underpreveleged - not just in terms of class but also in terms of caste, linguistic hegemony and political power. In that context, the principle of neutrality in globalisation of knowledge is very useful for the preveleged few in India. Combined with that anonymity that is provided by Wikipedia, you have a potent intellectaul weapon at the hands of the preveleged few.
now to some of the concerns raised by sugata in the article;
>Finally, let me end by posing a few nagging questions about this indigenous enterprise of knowledge: In the world that we live is it really possible to segregate 'our' knowledge and 'their' knowledge?
It should be possible to seggregate and it can be done. It more necessary `in the world that we live'.
>What kind of an exercise would this be and what kind of mindset would this require? Is it not embedded with an element of violence like in all reclamations, revivals and revisitations? Is there a more reconciliatory path that we should explore?
This would be a very sensitive excercise and yes there could be elements of violence but can be minimised with partnerships with all indigenous groups. As we go along more reconciliatory paths may emerge but we need to start walking the talk first.
>How does one erase the power relationship that exists between the language that gives and the one that receives? How does one handle the economics and politics of it? Isn't it a better strategy to reverse the process, at least as a first step to achieve parity, where you flood the power language, in this case English, with elements and idioms that are local?
The very premise that there is a language that gives and one that receives is wrong. All languages/ cultures/ viewpoints are equal and that is the mindset we need for this excercise.
> Does this whole exercise of marking territory not shrink our world and vistas, is it pragmatic at all when the human mind is now such an enormous interface of innumerable influences? It is easy to unleash this project, but how does one control its dynamics? Haven't we seen the havoc caused by chauvinistic groups? Wouldn't they derive legitimacy from this kind of a knowledge project? How does one infuse a good deal of magnanimity into this whole process?
`Our' knowledge cannot shrink `their' knowledge and vice versa. in an attempt to expand the vistas, i cannot overlook my beutiful orchards. Futher, expanse of our world has nothing to do with indigenous viewpoints. If there are a million sub cultures in India, it means there are a million ways of seeing and undrestanding the same world. At this point we cannot have much idea about how to control it. There are many chauvinistic groups and we will have to deal with them whil recognising what they stand for. i am optimistic about magnanimity.
thanks and regards
Basavaraj N Itnal
--- On Sun, 2/27/11, Achal Prabhala <aprabhala(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Achal Prabhala <aprabhala(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Wikimedia-in-blr] interesting article on knowledge production and kannada
> To: "Mailing list for Wikimedians / Wikipedians in Bangalore, India" <wikimedia-in-blr(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Sunday, February 27, 2011, 3:57 PM
> http://outlookindia.com/article.aspx?270643
>
> Posting this article to the list as I think it has various
> interesting
> tangents for the idea of knowledge in India - though Sugata
> writes
> specifically about Kannada, I think he is talking about any
> Indian
> language at all.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-in-blr mailing list
> Wikimedia-in-blr(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-blr
>
Hi,
Shiju Alex have prepared a very detailed and informative report based
on the statistics of Indian wikipedia projects between 2010 Jan 1 and
2010 Dec 31.
You can read it here
http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/indian-language-wikipedias-2010-s…
The numbers give many valuable inputs for the future activities of
wikipedia in Indian Languages.
Thanks
Santhosh
मराठी भाषा दिवसाच्या सर्वाना शुभेच्छा.
The information on the occasion of Marathi Bhasha din
Marathi Bhasha Divasa Greetings.
On this occasion, we would like to share a few things with you.
The website www.saakava.com was launched on May 1, 2010- the Golden Jubilee of
Maharashtra. The website gives translation of an English sentence into Marathi.
The Machine Translation software Saakava carries out this translation. The
software has been somewhat primitive( a pre-beta version) so far. We have been
improvising it on a regular basis and will continue to do so. A number of
suggestions from users and sentences tried by the visitors of the website were
taken into account while making such changes.
A project of this type dealing with languages belonging to different families of
languages is very time-consuming and it involves a sizeable financial investment
also. It could be possibly the first of its type – at least the first which is
so user-friendly.
At present, it deals with nearly two lakh words/word groups/phrases. It handles
types of sentences which a seventh standard student ( from a Marathi medium
school) is expected to know. The process of incorporating more advanced types of
sentences is in progress.
Some experts in the translation studies and profession encouraged us by writing
e-mails of appreciation. There were some useful suggestions also. A tenth
standard student form Mumbai, whose mother tongue is not Marathi, wrote that
Saakava turned out to be useful while studying Marathi. A number of individuals
helped either directly or indirectly. Many thanks to all of them.
The version which is being presented on the occasion of Marathi Bhasha Divasa
has a special feature. It gives Marathi words ( paaribhashik words) for
technical words from various subjects. Our website gives more details. Of
course, some other sites also give such lists. Work on branches such as Grammar,
Ecology and Medicine has been undertaken. It will be very convenient to have
on-line availability of such words.
You can participate in this project in a variety of ways :
1. Please visit the project today. Also, keep on visiting frequently. Since the
software is being updated regularly, some of the mistakes that you find may have
been corrected later on.
2. Sentences that you input are very useful to us. Sentences of various types
help us in improving the software.
3. If you find that a particular type of sentence pattern is always incorrect,
please write to us at Saakava.Suggestion(a)gmail.com
4. Please forward this email to your friends and those who could be interested
in English-Marathi translation.
5. Please try to promote Saakava via forums related to translation, machine
translation, social networking sites like orkut/facebook and blogs. This will
allow Saakava to reach a large number of individuals.
Thanks and best regards.
Sincerely,
Saakava group.
All,
The Election is almost coming to an end. Kindly cast you vote if you havent
already.
Thanks.
Regards,
Jyothis.
http://www.Jyothis.net
My Malayalam Wikipedia page <http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis>
Metawiki page <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis>
I am the first customer of http://www.netdotnet.com
My toolserver tools <http://toolserver.org/~jyothis>
woods are lovely dark and deep,
but i have promises to keep and
miles to go before i sleep and
*lines to go before I press sleep*
completion date = (start date + ((estimated effort x 3.1415926) / resources)
+ ((total coffee breaks x 0.25) / 24)) + Effort in meetings