WikimediaIndia-l February 2012

wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

84 participants
110 discussions

Meeting with Gender Rights Group
by wheredevelsdare＠hotmail.com 24 Feb '12

24 Feb '12

Hiya, This is to inform you that Bishakha and I had a meeting with the team at the Akshara Centre (http://www.aksharacentre.org/), a Mumbai based NGO that works on womans rights and runs a library in Mumbai yesterday. The meeting was organised by Bishakha, who knows some of the people running the organisation, as there was some interest from their end to see if they could collaborate with us in any way. I was asked to join in as a Wikipedian to conduct a small workshop for the team at Akshara so that they could understand the principles and basics of editing. The scope is unimaginably big. As we realised, rights issues in India are not covered much, even on English Wikipedia. We have proposed starting of a "Collaboration of the Month" initiative with them, wherein we will choose a topic (i.e. one article) where both Wikipedians involved and the NGO are comfortable with - using Akshara's library resources as references. They sounded excited about running such a COTM on a pilot basis and have suggested we organise a WikiAcademy for which they will invite interested persons to come and attend, thus making it easier for them to start off. From our end, we are looking for atleast a couple of Wikipedians who can help support such a project online on a regular basis - the Wikipedian need not be Mumbai (or even India) based, as this is an online collaboration. Do contact Bishakha/me if your interested in helping out/ forward this to other lists where you feel we might get a response on the above. Inputs on the above are most welcome. Kind Regards,

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Report on Mumbai Workshop 2
by wheredevelsdare＠hotmail.com 24 Feb '12

24 Feb '12

Moksh and I went to the Text100 office at Nariman Point on 6 January 2012. Aprox 25 people attended the Workshop in person which was webcast live to Text100 offices in Delhi and Bangalore. Through the 1 hour Workshop we covered the below and answered several questions raised by attendees. We covered the following: 1. Wikipedia Philosophy/5 Pillars (and that we do not have editorial control, that admins are nothing but editors with additional responsibilities. On what is done when there is an issue we explained the process upto Arbcom and that Jimbo has a veto which he has never used so far and has stated that he doesnt think he will). 2. Licensing (Explained Wikipedia is free licensed under CC-BY-SA) 3. What Wikipedia is NOT 4. NPOV/YESPOV 5. Be Bold and edit anything that is incorrect 6. Etiquette/AGF 7. Tutorial (Editing/Citations etc) 8. RS 9. CoI (Bell Pottinger affair) Moksh also gave a live editing example and we showed them how to sign on a page with 4 tides (the attendees had actually typed their names on the Wiki page for the workshop). One of the participants mentioned official company photos on Wikipedia articles. Explained that such photos on have been donated to Commons and suggested that Text100 could also donate their photo archives to Commons, which would be useful for several articles. They sounded positive on this aspect - will be following up with them on this.

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[OT][Press] : Skip the numbers game
by Srikanth Lakshmanan 23 Feb '12

23 Feb '12

http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/nxg/article2919794.ece Curriculum is always a few years, if not decades, out of date. Only by getting out can you get knowledge and skills that are current and useful. For example, I did the Google Summer of Code (internship) with mediawiki last year, and am an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, where I help run Wikipedia, an amazing job with a huge impact. Would've never happened if I stuck to my “curriculum”. - YUVARAJ PANDIAN Go Panda! -- Regards Srikanth.L

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Wikimedia India Chapter : Jan 2012 Report
by Naveen Francis 22 Feb '12

22 Feb '12

Dear all, Greetings from Wikimedia India !!! The Wikimedia Chapter (India) celebrated its first anniversary on 3rd January 2012. Organisational Updates Formation of Task Forces: The formation of the different task forces are still in progress. The various task forces are a) Fundraising, b) Special Projects, c) Administration, d) City and Language Special Interest Groups, and e) Communications, PR & Media Relations. We are seeking more volunteers for the task forces. If you are interested, please feel free to contact the respective task force stewards or find more information here [1] Membership: The Chapter membership stands at 196 members as of 31 January 2012. Six new members were added to the chapter membership in this month. We extend a very warm welcome to the family. Donations: Total donations received in Jan 2012 - INR 10700 Average donations in Jan 2012 - INR 3566 FCRA: Our application for prior permission under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act FCRA 2010, with the Government of India is under process. As the stated time for response is over recently, chapter will be following up with the authorities. [ As we write this report, our application was approved by the Government of India] Internet Relay Chat(IRCs): >From time to time, Wikimedia India conduct planned online IRC chat sessions. The IRC on Jan 05, 2011 was anchored by Sudhanwa Jogalekar with the focus on Chapter Specia Interest Groups (SIG) co-ordination [2]. The IRC on Jan 07, 2010, anchored by Arun Ramarathnam discussed on the Jan 15th Celebration plans, SIGs and GLAM projects. [3] Board Meetings: The Wikimedia Chapter Executive Committee had two tele-conference EC meetings (dated 04 Jan and 18 Jan, 2012) in the month of January.The Wikimedia India chapter and Wikimedia Foundation had one joint co-ordination call on 25 Jan 2012, which was attended by Arjuna Rao Chavala, Naveen Francis, Tinu Cherian and Hisham Mundol. The main agenda of the call was on Chapter - Foundation India programs Collaboration Framework . WikiConference 2011 The Chapter and Mumbai Conference organisers are working closely for the closure and audit of accounts related to WikiConference Mumbai 2011. Community & Special Interest Groups. SOPA and Wikipedia Blackout: The global community of volunteers who edit the English Wikipedia had decided to support the protest against the introduction of the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) in the US House of Representatives and the “Protect IP Act” in the US Senate. To that end, the English Wikipedia was blacked out globally for a period of 24 hours on 18 January 2012. The black out in India commenced at 10.30am IST on 18 January 2012. The Press release and Communication to the members related to Wikipedia Blackout can found here [4],[5]. Wikipedia eleventh anniversary : Wikipedia turned eleven on the 15th of January 2012. The eleventh anniversary of Wikipedia was celebrated in different parts of the country [6]. More than 8 Indian cities and towns and over 200 Wikimedians & Wiki enthusiasts celebrated this occasion of Wikipedia anniversary, around the nation. Some of the meetups had a Wikipedia anniversary cake to celebrate the occasion. Google Hangout was also conducted between different cities celebrating at the same time. The New Wikimedia India portal ( wikimedia.in ) was launched on this day. It is designed to provide quick and rapid access to Indic wikimedia projects - Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikiquote and Commons. A full collection of images related to the celebrations, around the nation, can be found here [7]. Events: A round-up of Wikimedia events, academies and initiatives around the nation is as follows. Wikipedia Takes Ahmedabad (3 Jan 2012): Wikipedia Takes Ahmedabad [8] is a scavenger hunt for free content photography in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, organised by Noopur Raval , Anirudh Bhati and Srikeit Tadepalli. The aim of this exercise is to encourage participants to compete to take photographs of as many local sights and city specific objects of cultural heritage as possible for Wikipedia articles. Over 75 participants attended and around 815 images were uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons as a part of this initiative [9]. Wikipedia Takes Mumbai II ( 28 Jan 2012) : This is the second photography drive in Mumbai. [10] The event was led by Nikita Belavate, Anshuman Fotedar and Karthik Nadar and other members of the Mumbai Community. Over 625 images were uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons as a part of this initiative [11] Wiki Academies/Workshops : Several Wiki Academies were held in different parts of the nation , organised and conducted by the Chapter, its members ,WMF India Programs and the Wikimedia community in India. . a) Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi , Kerala (05-Jan) [12] b) Workshop at Text100, Mumbai (webcast to Text100 Delhi and Bangalore) (06-Jan) [13] c) SSN College of Engineering, Chennai (11-Jan ) [14] d) P S R Rengasamy college of engineering for women, Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu. (20-Jan) [15] e) Netaji Subhash Engineering College, Kolkata, West Bengal (25-Jan) [16] f) Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal (25-Jan) [17] g) Amrita School of Communication, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu (28-Jan) (18) h) Jamia Millia Islamia, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Delhi (30-Jan) [19] i) Kerala Sahitya Academy, Trissur, Kerala (8-Jan) [20] j) Jnana Prabodhini - Wikiacademy, Pune (15-Jan) [21] A session on Commons was conducted for photography group called ‘Tassavurrati’. [22] They have successfully started uploading pictures of their trips (most recent: Surajkund Mela) to the Wkimedia Commons. Other News: - Telugu SIG celebrated the Wikipedia day on 29 Jan 2012 at Hyderabad. Top 10 contributors in the articles category and non article category were recognised at the function. [23] - Sanskrit Wikipedia saw an excellent editor growth (50%) compared to last month, and a 234% increase in the number of edits. - The 1st Delhi Odia Wikimeetup and Academy was conducted on 29 Jan 2012 by Odia SIG Chair and WMF India Programs Consultant , Subhashish Panigraphi. [24] - One of the first Assamese Wikipedia community meetup and Wikipedia Workshop was held on Jan 29 at Guwahati University, Guwahati, Assam [25] Milestones & Anniversaries January 2012 24 - The Sanskrit Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sa:> has reached 200 entries with the addition of over a dozen entries all apparently meaning "sun". 20 - The Divehi Wikipedia<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=Dv:&action=edit&redlink=1>has reached 100,000 page edits. - The Assamese Wikipedia<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=As:&action=edit&redlink=1>has reached 500 uploaded files. 17 - The Bengali Wikipedia<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=Bn:&action=edit&redlink=1>has reached 1,000 uploaded files. - The Oriya Wikipedia<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=Or:&action=edit&redlink=1>has reached 2,000 articles. 15 - The Bengali Wikipedia<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=Bn:&action=edit&redlink=1>has reached 1,000 uploaded files. - The Urdu Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ur:> has reached 10,000 entries. 13 - Wikimedia Commons <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/> has reached 12,000,000 files. - The Tamil Wikibooks<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=B:ta:&action=edit&redlink=1>has reached 10,000 page edits. 10 - The English Wikibooks<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=B:&action=edit&redlink=1>has reached 40,000 book modules. 7 - The Marathi Wikipedia<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=Mr:&action=edit&redlink=1>has reached 100,000 total pages. - The Assamese Wikipedia<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=As:&action=edit&redlink=1>has reached 1,000 articles. Media Coverage There was a huge coverage for Wikipedia on Indian media in this month, mainly related to Wikipedia Blackout. A comprehensive list of the coverage can be found here [24] We look forward to your continued support and active participation. Report compiled by Executive members,SIG chairs and The Communications team. Best, On behalf of Wikimedia Chapter (India) Naveen Francis Secretary Notes: 1) http://members.wikimedia.in/Main_Page#Task_forces 2) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Internet_Relay_Chats/Jan_05,2012 3) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Internet_Relay_Chats/Jan_07,2012 4) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Press_Releases/2012/_English_Wikipedia_to_go_dark_… 5) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Communication_regarding_SOPA_and_Wik… 6) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Eleven 7) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_11_in_India 8) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Ahmedabad 9) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ahmedabad_1 10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Mumbai_II 11) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_Takes_Mumbai_2 12) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wiki_Academy/Cochin_University_of_Science_and_Tech… 13) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Workshop/Mumbai_Workshop_2 14) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wiki_Academy/SSN_College_of_Engineering,_Chennai 15) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/P_S_R_Rengasamy_college_of_engineering_for_women,_… 16) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wiki_Academy/Netaji_Subhash_Engineering_College 17) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wiki_Academy/Jadavpur_University 18) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wiki_Academy/Amrita_School_of_Communication,_Coimb… 19) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MDHJMI1 20) http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WATSR2 21) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Pune/W11_celebration_Pune_wit… 22) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tassavurrati_1.jpg 23) http://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%AA%… 24) http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MDEL1 25) http://as.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A7%B1%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%AA%… 24) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news#Jan_2012

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Localisation and internationalisation bugs affecting Indic language communities
by Sumana Harihareswara 22 Feb '12

22 Feb '12

On 02/22/2012 07:00 AM, wikimediaindia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org wrote: > From: Srikanth Lakshmanan <srik.lak(a)gmail.com> To: Wikimedia India > Community list <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Cc: WMF > Localisation team <localisation-team(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: > [Wikimediaindia-l] Localisation and internationalisation bugs affecting > Indic language communities Message-ID: > <CA+30aUNZiw70guq189DLp0wF2ttgiJxL5VNDZeBP3+R3pBqGyQ(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at > 10:54, Sumana Harihareswara <sumanah(a)wikimedia.org>wrote: >> > On 02/20/2012 07:00 AM, wikimediaindia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.orgwrote: >>> > > Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:23:08 +0530 >>> > > From: Srikanth Lakshmanan <srik.lak(a)gmail.com> >>> > > If you are asking only about technical issues, many communities do log >> > bugs >>> > > from time to time. But when they remain open beyond certain period and >> > the >>> > > person who logged becomes inactive, they go into black hole and there is >> > no >>> > > one to follow up(even if its fixed, they remain open). >> > > There is nothing to be distressed here. > > >> > Srikanth, this is distressing to hear! If you could point to some >> > specific Bugzilla reports that have gone into the "black hole", >> > including ones that no longer reflect reality, I could help ask the >> > localisation team to follow up and at least put some updated information >> > in the issues at bugzilla.wikimedia.org . >> > > They are called "black hole" for the reason anyone(apart from the filer / > folks who conversed) might not be able to easily spot them. In most cases > the bugs lack update from the filers / language communities. But again if > the filer is from one generation and has retired, who does the follow up? > Ideally language support teams must do it. But all of us know Indic > communities have very few people to look into these and the common pattern > I have found across few communities I have interacted is that spending time > on bugzilla / improving technology/language support is not going to change > things big way, so I might as well be contented (Ex:- "Why Narayam when js > works fine") with whats there and do my editing. But at some point, > communities need to focus on these, as and when the communities grow, they > will also get contributors who are interested in supporting the language > technically. > >> > But the larger >>> > > issues are common and pretty much known to i18n team. (like say PDF >>> > > rendering). I tried cleaning up Tamil related bugs recently which were >>> > > documented here[1] since 2006, also created a tracking bug[2]. >>> > > >>> > > But then as someone else said, "People are just waiting for one more >>> > > tracking bug to fix those. !" //So tracking bugs don't help beyond a >> > point ! >> > >> > This is also distressing to hear! I'm not quite sure what was implied >> > there -- did the speaker mean that the localisation team won't address >> > certain problems until there are more tracking bugs to help track >> > issues, or something else? >> > > The quote was from one of the bugs I remember seeing on bugzilla, said by > someone on a totally different bug nothing related to localization. The > point I implied quoting it was "process for the sake of it doesn't help > much beyond a point". Adding tracking bugs does not impact the age of the > bug. The bugs remain open either because they are hard to solve / lack of > bandwidth / lack of input / variety of other reasons, not because no one is > tracking them. Adding a tracking bug wont magically fix the bug / help in > the getting it to closure. But tracking bug serves useful especially for > anyone new to see what are problem areas, how can I help fix / test / not > report duplicate bugs etc. > > > >>> > > Most, if not all Indic issues would be tagged with i18n keyword on >> > bugzilla. >>> > > >> > Yes, adding the i18n keyword to an issue in Bugzilla will help bring it >> > to the attention of the localisation team. >> > > Another point, Not all Indic wikipedia related issues are i18n issues, > though there might be heavy overlap. There are site requests like changing > logo,namespace, installing extensions <<whatever>>. The point to note is, > when someone does these things in any Indic community(which already have > tiny community), please keep the community widely posted / document these > somewhere.Not just issues, but solutions/workarounds, gadgets used, things > like abuse filter rules(if any) and its rationale behind etc. This will > help someone else in your community(who may come years later) to follow up > even if you retire / had forgotten. Fortunately Tamil Wiki community did > that from the beginning(at least the major ones,if not everything) in the > form of a page[1] and I was able to go through,know the past issues,update > it after almost 2 years! I felt a tracking bug might be easier to track on > issues than a page, so I just created one. > > >> > Thanks for mentioning this problem, Srikanth. > > This problem is not restricted to bugzilla. This may even happen in say in > translation or anything, where only a subset (ideally 1-2 in a community of > 10) involve in the activities and do not document / pass over the knowledge > properly.Smaller Wikipedias must not rely on select individual on anything > so much that they become extinct/dormant after their wiki-time > (Insert story of Bishnupriya Manipuri) I hope Shiju is reading and might > be able to relate to it / research on solutions :) > > > [1] http://tawp.in/r/3hl > > -- Regards Thanks for the reply and for giving more perspective on these issues, Srikanth. I know that other people who work actively on localisation and internationalisation, and on helping nurture smaller Wikimedia projects, can speak with more experience and knowledge than I can. But I do want to mention here the language support teams https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Language_support_team which are a structure that could help with some of the problems that you mentioned. -- Sumana Harihareswara Volunteer Development Coordinator Wikimedia Foundation

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Improving the Health of the Community
by Shiju Alex 22 Feb '12

22 Feb '12

Dear All, I am writing to share with you a very inspiring initiative regarding health and medicine articles on Wikipedia. Crores of Wikipedia readers read up about health related issues either when they or their loved ones fall ill or before or after they have consulted doctors or when they are curious about a particular disease or drug. In fact, quite a few doctors and nurses also read up these articles to improve their knowledge. Wikipedia's medical articles have 15-20 crore page views every month. The top 300 articles are viewed more than 1 lakh times every month. The challenge is that the majority of these articles are only available in English. This initiative ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Translation_tas…) has been conceptualised by WikiProject Medicine, Wikimedia Canada and very interesting organisation called Translators Without Borders. It seeks to translate a set of 80 of the most important health care articles into as many languages as possible. Given the state of our health care system as well as the increasing readership of Indic language projects, there is huge positive impact that we can have if we participate in this initiative and have these articles in all Indic languages. The project page (referenced above) includes an outline of the project, FAQs, useful links and a sign up for interested volunteers. The ways that we can participate are as follows - English Editors to improve articles on en-wp - English Editors to convert articles into simple English Wikipedia (so that non-English editors who don't have a medical background can also help out) - Indic editors to help translating either by themselves or by helping the translators at Translators Without Borders Remember, you don't have to be a health care professional to help out. All you have to do is simply care. I am really happy to note that 5 editors from 5 Indic languages have already signed up<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Translation_tas…>for this wonderful project. Of these 2 languages - Assamese and Malayalam - have already started wiki project and started working on articles (really big comprehensive articles) related to Medicine. Assamese wikipedia medicine project page: ৱিকিপিডিয়া:ৱিকিপ্ৰকল্প চিকিৎসাবিজ্ঞান<http://as.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A7%B1%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%AA%…> Some of the articles created: - কৰ্কট ৰোগ<http://as.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%95%E0%A7%B0%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%9F_…> (Cancer) - সৰ্পদংশন<http://as.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%B8%E0%A7%B0%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AA%E0%A6%A6%…> (Snakebite) Malayalam wikipedia biology project page: വിക്കിപീഡിയ:വിക്കിപദ്ധതി/ജീവശാസ്ത്രം<http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%…> Some of the articles created: - ആസ്മ (Asthma) <http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asthma> - ന്യുമോണിയ (Pneumonia) <http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumonia> - മസ്തിഷ്കാഘാതം (Stroke) <http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke> Please note that this project do not involve machine translation or bots. It is really happy to note that both in Assamese and Malayalam wiki these projects are run by doctor (or medicine students) wikipedians :) Yes, Indic wikipedias has editors from all wakes of life. There is so much potential on the articles related to medicine both in Indic and English. I encourage interested wikipedians to join this project by adding your name here<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Translation_tas…> . I welcome and invite everyone to join in. Healthy Editing Shiju Alex

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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] The Hindu : "The struggles of keeping Kannada Wikipedia afloat"
by Ashwin Baindur 22 Feb '12

22 Feb '12

As a person working in the relevant field, we would welcome Shiju's comments on the article, its facts, proposed steps by the editors mentioned and what Kannada Wikipedia needs for revival. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur ------------------------------------------------------ On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 11:00 AM, Tinu Cherian (Wikimedia India) < tinucherian(a)wikimedia.in> wrote: > *The Hindu : "The struggles of keeping Kannada Wikipedia afloat"* > > http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/article290900… > > *In the world of online Kannada content, blogs may be thriving but > Wikipedia is struggling. The reasons vary from technology barriers to lack > of contributors, say Wikipedians. > > While there has been a surge in Kannada content in the last two years, > contributors to the language have been grappling with technology barriers. > > After floundering for years, the Kannada Wikipedia picked up with font > availability, said Hari Prasad Nadig, a Kannada Wikipedian. The software > to add to Kannada Wikipedia is not so user-friendly, and only geeks can > edit it properly. > > Unlike English, which has a large community, technology issues are glaring > in smaller communities. “Growth is slow with respect to technology in > smaller communities,” he said. The lack of a good Unicode font has been a > persisting problem so the reader ends up seeing boxes instead of Kannada > text. After trying to write using the ‘Thunga' font, which had problems > with vowels, besides other bugs, today, ‘Kedage' is the most complete font, > though issues remain with this one too, Mr. Nadig said. > > Besides, various operating systems provide different levels of support for > the script. “All these small factors together discouraged people from > contributing. It's not that people don't want to use Kannada on the Net. > Traffic on the Net is very high; there is Kannada on Facebook and Twitter > too,” he said. > > Another challenge is writing and adding quality content. “The community > has to grow if Kannada Wikipedia is to grow,” he said. The quality of > content also matters. One person adding thousands of ‘stubs' on, say, > Kannada films, does not help the reader, and in fact, drives them away from > the site. Also, Kannada Wikipedia needs “starter” articles, to get people > reading before they can start adding content, he said. > > In order to grow, Kannada Wikipedia requires an active, organic community, > which is not imposed through a catalyst of paid content creators. Once, > Google started a tool that had machine-translated content improved by > manual translations. Yet the Kannada content was “looking like spam. They > (manual translators) didn't understand markup, templates; (it was) all > malformed”, he said. > > An observation about contributors is that people in metros prefer writing > to the English Wikipedia though they know Kannada and are tech-savvy. > “Bangalore has less than 10 people writing to Kannada Wikipedia,” he said. > > Omshivaprakash, Chair for Kannada Special Interest Group for Wikipedia, > said people are not aware that Kannada Wikipedia now has simple tools to > add content. He said “Wiki academies” would be set up to train people on > adding Kannada content. “Everyone complains that the quality of Kannada > Wikipedia is low, but they do not know that they can edit it themselves,” > he said.* > > Regards > Tinu Cherian > press(a)wikimedia.in > http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news > > Important Note : Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes > only. The publisher ( The Hindu ) of the above news article owns the > copyrights of the article / content. All copyrights are duly acknowledged. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Wikimedia > Chapter, India Member's Group. > To post to this group, send email to wmin-members(a)googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > wmin-members+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/wmin-members?hl=en?hl=en >

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Localisation and internationalisation bugs affecting Indic language communities
by Sumana Harihareswara 22 Feb '12

22 Feb '12

On 02/20/2012 07:00 AM, wikimediaindia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org wrote: > Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:23:08 +0530 > From: Srikanth Lakshmanan <srik.lak(a)gmail.com> > To: Wikimedia India Community list > <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Press] : The Hindu : "The struggles > of keeping Kannada Wikipedia afloat" > Message-ID: > <CA+30aUPsvLiA2YrjNz3KTWs7zgRuTCAiCPoFu4PZidYgu=Abgw(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 11:43, sankarshan <foss.mailinglists(a)gmail.com>wrote: > >> > I guess what I am asking is whether all the issues that the various >> > language communities in India face have been recorded on the bugzilla >> > and, there is a page somewhere which allows anyone interested to track >> > them. >> > > If you are asking only about technical issues, many communities do log bugs > from time to time. But when they remain open beyond certain period and the > person who logged becomes inactive, they go into black hole and there is no > one to follow up(even if its fixed, they remain open). Srikanth, this is distressing to hear! If you could point to some specific Bugzilla reports that have gone into the "black hole", including ones that no longer reflect reality, I could help ask the localisation team to follow up and at least put some updated information in the issues at bugzilla.wikimedia.org . > But the larger > issues are common and pretty much known to i18n team. (like say PDF > rendering). I tried cleaning up Tamil related bugs recently which were > documented here[1] since 2006, also created a tracking bug[2]. > > But then as someone else said, "People are just waiting for one more > tracking bug to fix those. !" //So tracking bugs don't help beyond a point ! This is also distressing to hear! I'm not quite sure what was implied there -- did the speaker mean that the localisation team won't address certain problems until there are more tracking bugs to help track issues, or something else? > Most, if not all Indic issues would be tagged with i18n keyword on bugzilla. > > [1] http://tawp.in/r/3hl > [2] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/32578 > > -- Regards Srikanth.L Yes, adding the i18n keyword to an issue in Bugzilla will help bring it to the attention of the localisation team. Thanks for mentioning this problem, Srikanth. -- Sumana Harihareswara Volunteer Development Coordinator Wikimedia Foundation

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Crafts museum page
by Noopur 21 Feb '12

21 Feb '12

Dear all, I've created a working Project page on en-WP for the Crafts museum project. I welcome you all to join and put down your name as participants. Everyone is welcome, including people interested in translations, making userboxes, providing stats, creating articles and so on. We've hit a few roadblocks getting the formal agreement finalized, while that still happens I realized there was a lot of back end work which could be finished. Look forward to your support! Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Crafts_Museum -- Noopur Raval Student Arts and Aesthetics Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Ph: 9650567690

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Fwd: [Foundation-l] Reminder: IRC office hours with the localization team tomorrow
by Santhosh Thottingal 21 Feb '12

21 Feb '12

Hi, A gentle reminder. The office hours is at 23:30 IST (18:00 UTC) Thanks Santhosh ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Steven Walling <swalling(a)wikimedia.org> Date: Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:46 AM Subject: IRC office hours with the localization team, on International Mother Language Day To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Hi everyone, I just wanted to give some advance notice about IRC office hours with the localization team [1] at the Wikimedia Foundation, which will be aptly held on International Mother Language Day.[2] Date: 2011-02-21 Time: 18.00 UTC Venue: #wikimedia-office As usual, more logistical info and time conversion links are available on Meta.[3] For a taste of what the localization team has been up to, I highly recommend the blog posts they've been writing regularly.[4] Thanks, and we'll talk to you later this month! -- Steven Walling, Wikimedia Foundation 1. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Localisation_team 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mother_Language_Day 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours 4. http://blog.wikimedia.org/c/technology/features/internationalization-and-lo… -- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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WikimediaIndia-l February 2012