Hi,
A Wiki workshop/academy was conducted at SSN College of Engineering,
Chennai on 11 January. It was organised by SSN opensource enthusiasts under
the aegis of the SSN Tamil Club. Me, Srikanth Lakshmanan and Arunmozhi from
the Tamizha FOSS group. [1] 60 students attended the academy.
The academy began at 9 in the morning with a presentation of open web and
open source from SSN opensource enthusiasts. I followed it up with a intro
section on wikipedia and a hands on editing session for about an hour. I
covered the basics of wikipedia, notability standards, five pillars,
copyright issues. I also covered basics of Wiktionary and Commons. Next
Srikanth took a session on technology behind wikipedia and how the students
could contribute technically to Wiki projects. We broke for lunch at 12 and
reconvened an hour later.
The afternoon session began with a audio recording exercise, where songs of
the Tamil poet Subramania Bharathi were sung and uploaded to commons.[2]
This served as a hands on exercise to identify the common copyright
problems and which material can be added to Wiki projects without copyright
issues. Public domain, nationalisation, copyright term expiry, threshold of
originality, open source file formats etc were discussed. Next Arunmozhi (
a student of a College of Engineering Guindy and a developer of Tamil open
source software) took a session on the initiatives of the Tamizha group.
After that we went on a photo walk of the SSN campus. We split into two
groups and walked around the SSN campus taking pictures. The images were
uploaded to Commons. [3]. This served as an oppurtunity to explain
copyright issues like freedom of panorama and derivative works. The academy
ended with a vote of thanks from the Tamil Club convener.
Over all it was a highly successful exercise (IMO) and a lot of productive
work was done. The attendees were highly motivated and asked a lot of
pertinent questions which lead to some interesting discussions. They also
gave a few interesting suggestions about improving the usability of Wiki
pages from newbie perspective (Srikanth has already started work on
implementing one of the suggestions).
I would like to thank the organising team (Dwaraka, Harvesh, Jason and
others) for doing an excellent job in organising the event , SSN Tamil
Mandram for its patronage and Wikimedia India Chapter for its help with
swag and printed material (though the quantity was nowhere sufficient :-).
Please ramp up the operation guys).
==Links==
[1]http://thamizha.com/
[2]http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tamil_audio_songs
[3]http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:SSN_College_of_Engineering
Minutes of Wikipedia Mumbai Meetup 14:
Coincidentally, 14 people attended the 14th Mumbai Meetup held at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Bandra earlier today :)
Wikipedia Takes Mumbai 2
Nikita and Karthik mentioned that they have been in touch with some professional photographers who sounded interested in joining in, tentatively on 21 January 2012. Netra said that HT are planning a photowalk on 28 January 2012 as part of their "No TV Day" campaign in association with a local photographer group (whom Mehul had suggested we involve and Nikita has been in touch with). Netra suggested it may be a good idea to try and tie-up with HT - we will be contacting them to see if we can work something out.
Vishal mentioned that Saturday would be a working day for him and he would not be able to make it. Vickram mentioned that any day some people would have a problem with, we cannot keep everyone happy.
Wikimania 2013
Ansuman, Nikita, Karthik and Krutika were strongly in favour of making a bid for Wikimania 2013, Mumbai. Mehul said he would be able to help out with the internet but not much more. Pradeep, Vickram and myself were not so sure. After the WCI experience we felt that a lot more commitment and focus was required from the community since bidding for Wikimania is like bidding for the Olympics, if we botch up, we put the country to shame. Rohini pointed out that another city like (Delhi) or Bangalore could bid. I mentioned that I had brought the topic up with community members across the country and there was consensus that no city is ready to take on something the scale of a Wikimedia as we currently stand.
Pradeep suggested that we should work at the grassroot levels instead, aiming at holding regular events locally for the next year, think of 2014 realistically and involving more people - starting with the photowalk. Everyone agreed to this.
GLAM Initiative
The meeting was given an update of the work done locally with GLAM and that the Department of Archives had been approached and a formal proposal needed to be presented. It was resolved to work on such a proposal and if needed hold a dedicated meetup for the same.
Celebration and Acknowledgement
We celebrated Wikipedia turns 11 with refreshments and cake. The refreshments were sponsored by Mumbai Community member Kundan Amitabh and the cake was sponsored by another Mumbai Community member, Pradeep Mohandas. The community thanks both Kundan and Pradeep for their large hearted gesture.
Revival of Kashmiri Wikipedia
Ansuman mentioned that he is interested in reviving the Kashmiri incubator and has spoken to a few friends who are interested as well. He spoke of how the entire community including himself had to leave their homeland overnight 2 decades ago and are now in danger of loosing their unique cultural identity, being far away from their homeland and Kashmiri Wikipedia could be a way of rejuvenating that identity and keeping it alive.
The meeting was filled with enthusiastic discussions and lasted 3 and a half hours, wrapping up at 6.30pm. It was good to see people who had not been part of the community until WCI 2011 like Ansuman, Nikita, Karthik and Krutika come and attend the meetup and bring a breath of fresh air.
Kind Regards,
Dear all,
Let me give you a brief update on things we did in Delhi to celebrate
Wikipedia's 11th birthday :)
To start with in the morning, Nitika had connected us with a photography
group called Tassavurati run by Kapil Syal. Shiju, Subha and I went to meet
them (12 of them) and made a small presentation on Commons. They were all
very enthusiastic and wanted to share their images for free and thought
this was a great platform for them. They plan for specific trips like
covering Surajkund mela and marathons etc and could be useful. Some of them
have already made an account and started tinkering around :) (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baul#Present_status)
Back in the office, we had 12 people again! Since most of them were new or
people with basic knowledge, Hisham was updating them on the variety of new
programs that Wikimedia is doing in India. There was a student from IIT and
another from Jamia. Both have expressed interest in organizing meetups,
editathons and maybe a hackathon for their college LUGs. We hope to hear
from them by next week and do something concrete before this month ends.
There were also people from advanced research organizations and such. They
have expressed interest in helping expand and network to build a strong
community in Delhi. Mitra (User: MittyKomon) is a new editor who expressed
interest in going to Jaipur literary festival and perhaps doing some
outreach or at least getting photographs of all the celebrated literary
figures coming there.
We cut the super cool Wiki cake :P and took pictures. I loved the Google
hangout bit, we should all do it more often (it's better than IRC logs :P)
As Delhi SIG chair, it was heartening to see genuine interest and we hope
to maintain this level of communication.
The photos have been uploaded to Category:Wikipedia_11_in_India.
Thank you,
Warmly
--
Noopur Raval
Student
Arts and Aesthetics
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Ph: 9650567690
LinkedIn
------------
Dr. Krishna N. Sharma requested to add you as a connection on LinkedIn:
------------------------------------------
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I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.
- Dr. Krishna N.
Accept invitation from Dr. Krishna N. Sharma
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View invitation from Dr. Krishna N. Sharma
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After accepting Dr. Krishna N. Sharma's invitation, check Dr. Krishna N. Sharma's connections to see who else you may know and who you might want an introduction to. Building these connections can create opportunities in the future.
--
(c) 2011, LinkedIn Corporation
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-toi/all-that-matters/310-IND…
More than 80 years after the first Linguistic Survey of India was
conducted by British officer George Grierson, six volumes of the
People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) were released at the Bhasha
Vasudha global languages conference in Vadodara on January 7. Ganesh
Devy, who chaired PLSI, tells Robin David that about 20% of Indian
languages are now missing
How many languages has India lost so far? Have we gained any in the
last few years?
The 1961 Census had listed 1,652 'mother tongues'. The 1971 Census
listed only 109 'mother tongues'. It is important to note that every
mother tongue claimed by a person reporting it may not be what
linguists consider a 'language'. In 1971, the linguistic data offered
in the Census was distributed in two categories - the
officially-listed languages of the eighth Schedule of the
Constitution, and the other languages with a minimum of 10,000
speakers each. All other languages spoken by less than 10,000 speakers
were lumped together in a single entry 'Others'. That practice
continued in subsequent enumerations. Considering how complicated
census operations are in countries with large migratory populations,
and particularly how much the accuracy in census operations is
dependent on literacy levels, it is not surprising that the data
collected remains insufficiently definitive. What is surprising,
however, is that as many as 310 languages, including all those 263
claimed by less than 5 speakers, and 47 claimed by less than a 1,000
speakers, are nearing extinction. These 310 'endangered' languages
were included in the 1,652 mother tongues of 1961. Only ten of these
appear to be around at present. In other words, a fifth part of
India's linguistic heritage has reached the stage of extinction over
the last half-century.
What is the rate at which we are losing languages?
There is no scientific measure to decide the rate of language loss.
But in recent years, the 'language gap' between the older generation
(60 to 80 years) and the younger generation (10 to 30 years) has
increased as never before. Today's 20-year-olds can't string together
a single sentence in the same language. They will mix Gujarati with
English, Marathi with Hindi and so on. This is alarming.
What are the main findings of PLSI?
The PLSI is not fully complete. We have so far completed the work in
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jammu &
Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Jharkhand,
Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. However,the trend we have
noticed in the states where the first LSI was carried out indicates
that about 20% of the languages assumed to be around are missing. One
aim of the PLSI is to examine the sociological composition of
multilingual spaces. From that perspective, large cities in the
country no longer match the character of the linguistic states. Thus
Maharashtra is Marathi-speaking, but Bombay needs to be seen as a
multi-lingual city, and therefore linguistically a 'national city'
rather than a state capital.
Have the languages that we have lost totally disappeared or do traces remain?
Often, when gaining livelihood becomes impossible within a given
language, large-scale 'language migrations' happen and whole
communities take to speaking some other language. These communities
carry traces from their earlier language to the new language zone. For
instance, Indian migrants to English have brought to it 'ki' and 'hai
na' (example: "I told her ki I am glad"; "This is not correct, hai
na?"). Words from ancient times and languages that are no longer in
use keep circulating in new languages.
Which state has the maximum languages?
The northern and the eastern states in India have generally greater
language diversity. Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are perhaps the
states that come at the tail end of the language diversity graph.
Can you briefly explain the methodology?
This is a survey of languages by persons belonging to the language
community. We have used a 'minimum format' for the non-scheduled
languages. It includes features like name, location and local history
of the languages; some samples of songs and stories, kinship terms and
nominal grammar. For the scheduled languages the entries are very
elaborate - almost a book length for every language. The 12 volumes
that are ready run into about 6,000 pages. The completed work in 42
volumes will have about 20,000 printed pages. The work is done with
the help of a large team of nearly 1,800 persons and a large
multi-disciplinary National Editorial Collective of scholars.
You have planned a global survey of languages too. How many countries
will be covered?
All countries eventually, but to begin with Papua New Guinea,
Indonesia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil, Congo and Australia -- the
countries with the largest number of languages. Scholars, cultural
activists and literary persons will be the collaborators. We have
created an International Bhasha Presidium for this purpose. I will
function as the international secretary general for this loose
federation. We hope to give a snapshot of the languages that exist
around the world.
---
*The Hindu : " Wikipedia turns 11 today "*
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/article280287…
*The world's largest free encyclopaedia turns 11 on Sunday. To mark the
occasion, the Wikipedia community will host events in seven cities across
the country. The community is also celebrating the first anniversary of the
Wikimedia India chapter.*
*
*
*On this occasion, the India chapter will launch a new portal (
www.wikimedia.in ) for easy access to Wikimedia sites in the Indian
languages. Wikipedia is currently available in 21 Indian languages.*
*
*
*The India chapter is focussed on creating greater awareness of Wikipedia
in Indian languages and to increase the volunteer editor base and Indian
content through its initiatives. “The portal will make it easier to locate
Indian language Wikipedias and other projects,” said Arun Ram, executive
committee member of Wikimedia India.*
*
*
*The Bangalore event, open to all Wikipedia users, contributors and
enthusiasts, is being held at the Centre for Internet and Society at Domlur
(Bangalore).*
*
*
*Besides Bangalore, events are being held in Ahmedabad, Cuttack, Delhi,
Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune, all centres where Wikipedia editors or
contributors are present in sizeable numbers.*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
Important Note : The publisher ( The Hindu ) of the above news article owns
the copyrights of the article / content. Request to kindly not reproduce or
circulate the content further. The information is only shared only with an
internal community who have been featured on this article. All copyrights
are duly acknowledged.
Hi Folks
A few days ago (shortly after Shiju & Nitika had sent long emails on Indic languages [1] and supporting outreach [2]), I was asked by a community member why I hadn't written a long one myself. ..well, here you go!
Jokes aside, it's important ever so often to step back and reflect, think through and communicate the work we are doing. Here are my thoughts on 2011 and plans for 2012.
REFLECTIONS 2011
2011 was very much about putting in place building blocks. There has been a lot of activity - but much has been behind-the-scenes. Here are the top 10 (in broad chronological order.)
• Community Engagement
I spend the first 2 months attending just about every community meetup that happened in the country - which took me to Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The purposes of my trips were to listen, understand and learn from community members, as well as to introduce myself. I updated the community on regular intervals on mailing lists as well as through monthly IRCs - and this communication needs to be intensified going forward.
• India Programs Plan
My first task was to develop an overall plan. [3] This was done collaboratively with the community on meta and identified 3 key areas of work: supporting community outreach, exploring the education system and initiating digital outreach to complement community outreach. This exercise also mapped out the India Programs team structure and included the selection of Delhi/NCR as the location for this team.
• Team Building
I joined in February. India Programs started as team only in the latter half of the year when Nitika & Shiju joined. Setting up a team is tough and takes time and effort. For the 4 positions we wanted to fill, I have personally interviewed over 50 candidates - many of who were fantastic - just to make sure we get the team right. With the further addition of Subha (who's just joined), I am confident that we have a strong team that can serve the community well. It has the right intellect, experience, work ethic, values and personal qualities. The missing link is the communications lead who I have not yet found. I am working on it and hope to report back with good news in the next couple of months. Shiju & Subha are existing community members while Nitika & I were new. The two of us have worked hard at getting understanding projects, editing and contributing in other ways. We now both feel like we are community members, which is great. Personally, I would like to thank and acknowledge the help of everyone - especially Theo - who helped me so much in the early days.
• Organisation Basics
India Programs team is currently a bunch of independent consultants. There is the need to have an organisation for them and to take care of basic stuff like an office. A huge amount of time has gone into the regulatory and legal aspects of setting up an independent trust to eventually house the team and the necessary approvals for this. [4] This is still ongoing work and there is much still to be done. I have secured some office space in Delhi (in my personal capacity.) This space is is not linked to either the Foundation or the Trust. I can't begin to tell you how much time this has taken. Every little thing has been a hard slog - from the trust registration process to furniture to an internet connection to drinking water!
• India Education Program - Pune Pilot [5]
This was the first pilot of India programs. The objectives were to encourage editing in classrooms and to encourage & enable students to become newbie editors beyond their semesters. Due to the problems with content quality (plagiarism, writing style, references and images) and the consequent adverse impact on the en-wp community, this pilot failed. There is an independent report that has been commissioned by WMF as well as some data analysis that is being done; both are due in the next few days. I am aware of the many of the issues and I/we have very deliberately made sure that this learning is reflected in all work that we are doing and will do (including and beyond education.) These include improving involvement of the respective language community, driving stronger program design, operating only at a scale that can be managed, as well as providing adequate training and support to newbies. It is important when you try and fail to have the humility to learn and I/we are doing this.
• WikiConference 2011 [6]
This was the first ever national-level meeting of the Indian community. It had a large attendance and I estimate that nearly 150 folks attended most parts of the conference (out of a total of 700.) India Programs team invested significant effort and provided considerable help in terms of counsel and hands-on support to the organisers. This was through providing direction for the event, co-ordinating 2 Fellowships, providing ad hoc advisory (such as media management), mediating intra-community issues and motivating the community of organisers. While there were issues with the conference, it was an important milestone for our India community and provided a forum for building relationships, sharing ideas as well as inspiring & energising community members. It is encouraging to see the level and intensity of community interactions and activities after the conference. It is useful to underscore that this was arguably the first and certainly the single biggest event co-ordinated at a national scale by our community.
• Chapter Relationship
I have worked hard at building a working relationship with the India Chapter. We now have regular monthly calls where we share updates, plans and advice. This was initiated by the Chapter and I'd like to acknowledge and thank them for their efforts on this. I will be honest and say that we still have some way to go towards a truly strong and deep partnership - but I continue to work towards this. We might not always be in agreement with the Chapter but will keep trying to work effectively.
• Indic Languages
The initiative on Indic languages is as difficult as it is full of potential. The opportunity is clear - in terms of massive language speaking populations and small communities / projects. We felt that the best way to start this initiative was to have conversations with as many Indic wikipedians as possible to understand, distill and share experiences, learnings and suggestions for the growth of their communities and projects. The plan is to identify community pilots that we can support but a more immediate benefit of this dialogue is to cross-pollinate ideas as well as to improve community cohesiveness and build momentum. Shiju shared these on mailing lists and village pumps. In addition, Shiju prepared and circulated a synopsis [7] that provided perspectives and suggestions to Indic communities. The next stage of this work is underway; more on that in the 2012 section below.
• Supporting Outreach
Supporting outreach is a new effort launched in December. The idea is to introduce Wikipedia to new communities of prospective editors. There is the potential of much more outreach in India but it is hampered by the lack of time, confidence and / or ability to do outreach. This work is focused on a combination of both theory and practice: we will curate outreach tips and standard presentation decks [8] and make them easily available to everyone - but also undertake outreach efforts with other community members. Results will be measured and shared to enable and motivate a step-jump in community outreach.
• Offline & Mobile
The team has also supported offline and mobile initiatives but this has been done on an ad hoc basis and limited to facilitating meetings. We can do much more, especially on offline.
PLANS 2012
In 2012, we hope to support the community through programmatic initiatives with community members. These will have 3 key features: strong community involvement, well-designed pilots and rigorous evaluation. In all cases, my priority will be to establish a strong set of processes for how we run pilots, measure results, gain learnings, cross-pollinate good ideas and support community members to independently run these.
There are 5 key priorities for the team for the first half of 2012.
• Supporting Indic Language Community Building
This is the single biggest priority for India Programs. The work that is currently underway has been to place specific ideas (customised to that language) in most village pumps and to encourage and facilitate community discourse around them. The intent is to sow seeds for community building that will eventually expand communities and improve projects. Some of these initiatives will be managed independently by community members. In cases where there is a request for support for a community initiative, we will go out of our way to help in whatever manner we can. This may be in the form of a pilots or other support. Building communities needs as many people to be involved so please do engage in community discussions on your respective village pumps and add your views, ideas, comments, suggestions, etc. These are your projects and every voice counts! Shiju will be driving this, supported by Subha.
• Supporting Outreach
We are still in the process of collating all the various presentation materials and tips. We want to participate and facilitate more outreach sessions and we want to test out the recommendations. Specifically, we want to plan outreach effectively, conduct it impactfully, stay in touch with attendees after the sessions and start measuring results. We will work closely with the Chapter on WikiAcademies and directly with interested community members on workshops. Please have a look at the page [8] created and improve / add to the material or by sharing your thoughts and question. Also, and I make this point because of an email thread of a few weeks ago, do not lose faith in outreach. It is hard and it can take a huge toll on time but it is so, so, so essential to the growth of our community. Nitika will be driving this, supported by Subha.
• Redesigning India Education Program
There is enormous opportunity in the youth of India and specifically with students. They can - in right circumstances - help contribute to our projects and can become shining additions to our communty. We need to figure out a much more successful way of tapping into this - avoiding (as many of) the problems as we had in the first pilot. We will work collaboratively with the community and design a new pilot for this. Anything and everything can be changed in this new pilot. Do engage on this from the design stage itself, and through the course of the new pilot. We need your help right through the journey. Nitika will be driving this, supported by all of us.
• Improving Communications
An important step will be to get a communications person on board. However, before (and of course after this person joins), there are things that we will do more and better.
We are doing more on this but we will intensify our community communications. We will make sure that monthly IRCs happen on time. We will have monthly newletters. We will share work plans of the team. We will be (even) more regular with other updates. We will explore all options, and not limit ourselves to mailing lists such as village pumps. If required (and this might be so in the case of relatively nascent Indic communities), we will reach out to individual editors on their talk pages to inform and invite them if they are not active on more public channels. We will continue to build on the strong base of the relationship with the Chapter. Do engage with us and reach out whenever you feel we have not been clear on anything.
Once the communications position is filled, we will also initiate work around press (especially local language print publications), digital outreach (providing online resources to inform and encourage newbies) and social media (to support community buildling.) We will work closely with the Chapter as well as with individual community members / groups.
• Trust Operations
A lot of work still needs to be done on the Trust and the various regulatory requirements. This includes a bunch of regulatory compliance things as well as applying for the necessary funding approvals. This is not sexy stuff - but it is necessary.
Also, we will start putting in place the essential elements for a small team's smooth operations - including the accounting systems and basic personnel functions. Subha will be driving this, supported by me.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Do let me have your views. Also, please do reach out if you need any clarifications or have suggestions. As always, do respond on this mailing list or feel free to reach out to me directly.
We exist to serve the community. We will do this to the best of our abilities. Do reach out for any help you need.
Happy Wiki 11th!
Happy New Year!
Happy Editing!
Warmest Regards,
hisham
Notes
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005813.…
[2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005872.…
[3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs
[4] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-November/004894.…
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IEP
[6] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2011
[7] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Indic_…
[8] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Outrea…
Hello everyone,
I am pleased to announce the beginning of Steward Election 2012 [1]. We are
now taking nominations from eligible candidates. Interested candidates can
check their eligibility and procedure to submit the nomination on the
guidelines page [2]. We are open to candidate submissions till January 28,
2012, 23:59 (UTC). Questions to the candidates can be submitted until
February 6, 2012, 23:59 (UTC). Guidelines about questioning can also be
found on our guidelines page [2].
This time we are also arranging the confirmation of existing stewards [3].
But the confirmation will begin on February 8, and will finish on February
27, 2012.
Please remember, the voting has not yet begun and will be not until
February 8, 2012, 00:00 (UTC). We will poke you once again when the voting
start.
As you all know steward election is a global event, so we need help from
volunteers to translate necessary pages into languages they speak. For
those who want to help us out with translation, please see our translation
portal [4]. And if you have any queries related to translation or anything
related to the election, you can ask us on the talk page [5]. Alternatively
you are free to poke us on IRC channel #wikimedia-stewards-elections.
For those who are a little bit surprised to see another election in few
months, I want to let you know that previous one (in September-October of
2011) was a special one which we arranged in need. This is the regular one
to elect new stewards and to confirm existing ones.
Please feel free to forward this e-mail to any list if you think it will be
useful. :-)
Regards,
Tanvir Rahman
Wikitanvir on Wikimedia
(On behalf of the Election Committee.)
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Elections_2012
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Elections_2012/Guidelines
[3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Confirm/2012/en
[4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Elections_2012/Translation
[5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Stewards/Elections_2012
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Omshivaprakash H L <omshivaprakash(a)gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 15, 2012 at 12:08 AM
Subject: [WMIN-Members] A report on Kannada Wikipedia Meetup
To: wmin-members <wmin-members(a)googlegroups.com>
Dear All,
We started meetups around Kannada Wikipedia yesterday. We celebrated
Wiki 11 with a long awaited meetup session. 9 people turned up
Including Mr. Arjun Rao chavla. Kalmane Koffee's small little corner
turned out to be a hot discussion point in few minutes. As we had few
new editors around us, Introduction was given on how and why wikipedia
can be the best platform to start sharing knowledge. Naveen and
Prabhodh had joined us from FSMK to share their commitment to work
with Wikipedia, and also explained why they would look for support
groups to work on these projects. Naveen explained how support groups
can help us grow steadily.
Discussion continued around topics like 1. Complaints that we hear
about Kannada wikipedia 2. Why we don't see regular editors 3. Support
groups for those who seek help 4. Unattended support requests 5.
Unavailable community around wikipedia to welcome and greet new
editors 6. Why should new editors find Wikipedia Interesting 7. How
build the community to be more active in terms of building the missing
support team 7. Special projects that we can take up to make things
Interesting around Kannada Wikipedia 8. Personal experiences about
editing wiki 9. How we can prepare ourselves to better Kannada wiki
state by July 12th on which we will be celebrating our 9th anniversary
and so on.
Abhiram from Sanskrit wiki joined us to explain why he hopped in to
Kannada wikipedia and started helping people around it and how
Sanskrit community working at present.
While Naveen and Prabhod mentioned about their monthly magazine for
FSMK not seeing enough articles from the FOSS community, I got an
instant idea of creating interest in people around us to work on a
specific topic for the month and collate and contribute that to
Kannada wikipedia and make it available / reachable to magazine
readers. This can go along with a story on how the community could go
ahead and use Wikipedia to build a detailed document to feature on its
Magazine. This will inspire not only techies but also those who read
the magazine to start contributing.
Shalini, Pradeep who work at Serverlots on a research project called
Alipi (http://janastu.org/technoscience/index.php/Alipi) which is a re-
narration project of the hub understood how wikipedia works and new
possibilities of reaching out to community.
Raghavendra, a linguist & a journalist joined the meetup happily to
understand how he can help us better quality of Articles contributed
by Google Translation team in which he had worked earlier.
Arjun shared his learnings from Telugu wikipedia and encouraged us to
find the new possibilities to engage more people on Kannada Wikipedia.
We were expecting Thejesh GN who was found to be the first Kannada
Wiki editor in early days of Kannada wikipedia, but unfortunately he
couldn't make it for the event. Wish to meet him in upcoming meetups
along with others who missed it.
Before i close this report: Here is something that we had to talk
about during our meetup.
A mail that I received from one of our top most Kannada wiki
contributor Mr. Holalkere Lakshmi venkatesh. On request to reach out
to Bangalore wikipedian's during our first meetup, he had sent an
email about Kannada wikipedia from Mumbai. Kannada wikipedia's present
state and how he wishes to to see in future could be found in his
email. I'm sharing it here along with this email for all to see the.
-----------
Here are some of my wishes about how Kannada Wikipedia should proceed
in the coming years !
The truths about kannada wikipedia :
We were sleeping almost from centuries, with out improving our mother
tounge, keeping in view of some totally unrealistic goals. Even when
we watch some kannada programmes on Chandana, the Anchor will be
narrating the events, etc; in high language, with lots of adjuctives
added to it, more than it deserves. Every thing is superficial non
realistic and almost not practical for the present day situation.
Let us start, from here.
What is our role ?
kannada is rich, we hear. But is it true ? yes and no. Provided if we
contribute a bit to its growth. We are supposed to read a lot to
enrich our knowledge and later find some words new, or borrow some
from some where, and see whether it fits to the context.
Pro. G. T. Narayana rao, T.R.Anantharamu, Pro. HRRRao, Dr. Pavanaja,
Hegde, and others so many of them have been doing a great job in
finding some equivalent Scientific words for the writers. We have to
be in costant touch of their work. Later some thing we have to
contribute.
This is not easy. First let us contribute some articles in kannda
wikipedia. They can be biographies, and about the people next door who
are doing some good work, they might not have Ph.Ds or M.Techs added
to the end of their names. Doesn't matter. We have to read them
throughly.
What we do when we get a doubt about some word or place or name ?
Refer Dictionary, or Encyclopedia, or ask some one . Right ?
But just a click distance we have the entire world is unfolded infront
of us- free of charge.
Why not use it ?
Here the English wikipedia comes to our mind immediately. It is well
developed and has real wealth of information. That is well managed by
competent people with dedication hard work, with upto date
information and love for the language. That is how it is treated as a
full enclyclopedia.
In Kannada, and many of our regional languages, we do not have one.
Why ?
We are not striving hard to have one. Create one.
We do not love our mother tongue. We won't read kannada literature. We
do not contribute to it. Earlier days during our time, letter writing
was there. But that great art has gone to dust bin; and our skill in
writing a good sentence, or narrating a story to our own children
has a back seet, and the Idiot box has taken over that place ! We are
struggling with SMS language skill.
That is part of history. What we have been facing from our childhood
days to this day.
So, no one has tobe blamed.
We are the makers and destroyers of our own follies.
Let us add something to the already existing articles.
Just like in English enclyopedia, we have to develop on the same
lines. Gradually we can go stronger by innovating it.
The new generation boys and girls are having lots of skills as for
Computer technology and skill in making the things much faster than
the old timers. This plus point should be encashed.
Unless you have kannda knowledge you can not make a good article. We
have appropriate words to match the English words. Only way is bring
the english words as they are in kannada, and try to borrow words from
hindi, urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali etc; they can borrow some from
kannada.
Rest is when one starts writing in wikipedia one explores the
necessity of finding the new ways and avenues !
Good luck and have a nice time.
I am a blogger. That way, I could improve my language skills.
When an old timer (68), with out the Computer skills whatsoever, can
make some thing in wikipedia, you can do wonders !
Wish you best of luck,
My real name is :
(ಹೊಳಲ್ಕೆರೆ ರಂಗರಾವ್ ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮೀವೆಂಕಟೇಶ್)
ನನ್ನ ತಾಯಿಯವರ ಹೆಸರು : ರಾಧಮ್ಮ ಮತ್ತು ತಂದೆಯವರ ಹೆಸರು : ರಂಗರಾಯರು.
I use the following names while writing in Wikipedia.
-Radhatanaya(Purely for kannada wikipedia articles)
-Rangakuvara(Use this name when I write for English wikipedia, some
articles have been written in kannada also)
----------------
Wiki meetup page is available here:-
http://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ:ಸಮ್ಮಿಲನ/೧
It was fun, interesting and there was much sharing... Wish to see more
of this with growing Kannada Wikipedia!
--
With Best Regards,
Omshivaprakash.H.L | ಓಂ ಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್ ಎಚ್. ಎಲ್ | ॐ शिवप्रकाश् एच्. एल्
Chair, Kannnada SIG
Wikimedia India Chapter
Phone: 91- 9902026518
[[User:Omshivaprakash]] kn: en: meta: comm:
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Omshivaprakash.H.L | ಓಂ ಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್ ಎಚ್. ಎಲ್ | ॐ शिवप्रकाश् एच्. एल्
http://platonic.techfiz.infohttp://blog.shivu.in
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