Hi everybody,
Wikimedia Strategywiki is trying to find out how they can improve reach and usability in Indian context.Previously on mr-wiki yahoo group I had taken online poll and found one of the glaring defficiancy in reaching out to the people. While other Marathi Language Websites get better word of mouth publicity and so they do have more editorial pool. Where as when it comes wikipedians my online survey shows that at least marathi wikipedians are reluctant to talk to their friends and family members about wikipedia.
And it is not about others it is a myself too,WHile I am a strong supporter of Wikipedia specialy local languge ones still, usually I do avoid to discuss about marathi languge wikipedia among my friends and family.
First of all let us discuss frankly and understand what is the reason of this reluctance? Wikipedia is too serious or boring a subject to discuss , wikipedia concept level is a too difficult to explain to others ?Objections and negative perceptions of the people are too deficult to handle? Wikipedia is not usefull to you in your own day to day life ? Wikipedia is not beneficial to your freind ? Wikipedia is not beneficial to your family? Wikipedia is not beneficial for my , my friend and family education , career/office work and rmy revenue ?
To which questions your answers goes yes ? If yes then is possible to elaborate or suggest a better solution that can make wiki movement more relevant to Indian context
Thanks and Regards
Mahitgar
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Hi all,
Thanks to all who had attended the last meetup in October. We definitely
missed those who were unable to attend.
The next edition of Bangalore Meetup in November is in planning state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MBL7
User:Ganeshk from US, is planning down to come to Bangalore if it is
possible to be scheduled on the fourth Sunday ( Nov 22nd 2009)
Please express your availibility for the date.
The good news is that we are getting lots of presentations and discussions
for the meetups.. Even my preso on AWB had to postponed to next meetup due
to lack of time. This is very good that we are able to generate more
interest and participation for the meetups.
Finally I shud sincerely again for the hospitality of CIS for helping us
host the events.
Thanks
Tinu Cherian
( User:Tinucherian)
Thanks to all who attented the Meetup and made it a success. Special Thanks
to Kiran (jackerhack) and Hari (HPN) for the presentations.
One photo of the event
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiMeetupBlore11Oct09_5.JPG
I have uploaded the rest of the photos to this category >
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bangalore_Meetup_2009
A big thanks to CIS ( Centre for Internet & Society) for helping us host us
the event.
If any one of you are blogging about the event, please do fwd me asap. Some
media people have asked me for more information on the event.
Thanks
Tinu Cherian
On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 7:26 AM, CherianTinu Abraham
<tinucherian(a)gmail.com>wrote:
> Just to remind again , it is happening this weekend.
>
> Hoping to meet all of you there..
>
> Thanks
> Tinu Cherian
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 9:38 AM, CherianTinu Abraham <tinucherian(a)gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> Hi friends,
>> This is to remind the next Wikipedia meetup happens next sunday Oct 11th
>> 2009.. just one more week ahead.
>>
>> Some newspaper publications have also expressed interest in covering the
>> event.
>>
>> Requesting everyone's help and participation to make this a success..
>>
>> Please sign up if havent already :
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Bangalore/Bangalore6
>>
>> Thanks
>> Tinu Cherian
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 6:29 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <
>> rsrikanth05(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks a lot Tinu. I just can't understand what to do.
>>>
>>> 2009/9/29 CherianTinu Abraham <tinucherian(a)gmail.com>:
>>> > A linkedin Notice to the event can be found at
>>> >
>>> >
>>> http://events.linkedin.com/6th-Wikipedia-WikiMedia-Wikimeetup/pub/135107
>>> >
>>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Bangalore/Bangalore6
>>> >
>>> > I am planning to take a demo on AWB ( AutoWikiBrowser ) , an advanced
>>> > wikipedia editing tool, on the same day..
>>> >
>>> > Thanks
>>> > Tinu Cherian
>>> >
>>> > On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Arun Ram <arunram25(a)gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Dear all:
>>> >>
>>> >> Please pardon an error in my email The meeting is on Sunday the 11th
>>> >> October. The mail content in wrongly mentioned as 9th Oct.
>>> >>
>>> >> The meeting is on the 11th of October (Sun) as per the wiki.
>>> >>
>>> >> My apologies for the oversight!
>>> >> Thanks to Anirudh for pointing it out.
>>> >>
>>> >> regards
>>> >>
>>> >> Arun
>>> >>
>>> >> Bangalore, India
>>> >> www.arunram.net | www.twitter.com/arunram
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 11:44 AM, Arun Ram <arunram25(a)gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Dear Wikipedians,
>>> >>>
>>> >>> This is to announce the next Wikipedian meetup to be held in Oct 9.
>>> >>> Further details can be found at the Wiki page:
>>> >>>
>>> >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Bangalore/Bangalore6
>>> >>>
>>> >>> The meetups are intended to be structured as follows — Introductions,
>>> a
>>> >>> few focused talks by wikipedians to share experience / expertise
>>> followed by
>>> >>> demos and open discussions on topics of common interest.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> We have some interesting talks lined up this meetup, Please do make
>>> it.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Please spread the word around and hope to see many of you there at
>>> the
>>> >>> meetup. We are having some good momentum going with the monthly face
>>> to face
>>> >>> meetups.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Regards
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Arun
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Bangalore, India
>>> >>> www.arunram.net | www.twitter.com/arunram
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>> >> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>>> >> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>>> > Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> If any message seems out of the blue from this account, PLEASE call me
>>> up on my mobile to confirm it was sent by me.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>>> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>>
>>
>>
>
Hi Siebrand,
Thanks for reaching out.
I am keen to help in anyway I can in my spare time towards this (connecting
people), though my time is a bit constrained with few other commitments.
Happy to try and connect you with people, who may have skills to help in
some of these languages.
I agree it is important to spread the word and focus on getting more and
more localization done for languages spoken in India.
There are a few others who would be keen to assist. I can connect you to
them as well.
Regards
Arun
Bangalore, India
www.arunram.net | www.twitter.com/arunram
On Wedf t, Oct 7, 2009 at 8:53 PM, Siebrand Mazeland
<s.mazeland(a)xs4all.nl>wrote:
> Dear Wikimedians from India.
>
> For those who do not know me, I am a staff member of
> http://translatewiki.net, a project where most of the translation of
> MediaWiki is done. MediaWiki is the software used by all wikis of the
> Wikimedia Foundation. There is more to translatewiki, but I hope you may
> discover that later.
>
> I have made an analysis of the localization of MediaWiki and its extensions
> with regards to use by the Wikimedia Foundation. I have done this with a
> scope of the 50 languages with the most speakers in the world[1]. As India
> is an enormous country, with a long history, it is no surprise that many
> languages are spoken by a lot of people.
>
> For India the following languages make the top 50 of most spoken languages
> in the world: Hindi (3), Bengali (10), Gujarati (34), Kannada (33),
> Malayalam (39), Marathi (17), Nepali (43), Oriya (42), Punjabi (15), Sindhi
> (37), Tamil (28), Telugu (20), and Urdu (29). Some of these languages have
> a
> fair level of localization (Telugu and Hindi are doing OK, but not
> excellent), but many others have very poor localization (Oriya and Urdu
> are
> doing particularly bad)[1].
>
> As I do not speak or read any languages that are not in a Latin, Greek or
> Cyrillic script, and live in the Netherlands, it is hard for me to crowd
> source translators for these languages. I am in dire need of structural
> help
> in that area. Having Wikimedia India formed is something I recognize as an
> enormous opportunity for getting the localization level of languages spoken
> in India to a higher level. It will enable more users to experience and
> enjoy the freedoms that we as Wikimedians try to create and provide.
>
> Please help me help in getting India's languages gain more ground and
> availability in the Wikimedia universe. Ideally I would like some kind of
> an
> ambassador from your community to spread the word and focus on getting more
> and more localization done for languages spoken in India. If you are
> interested in contributing as a translator, please visit translatewiki.net
> .
> If you are interested in investing time on a higher level, please contact
> me
> on-wiki, on this list, or by private e-mail so we can work something out.
> Any help is greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Siebrand Mazeland
> translatewiki.net staff
>
> [1]
>
> http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Project:MediaWiki_localisation_in_the_50_most_
> spoken_languages
> [2] http://www.mediawiki.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>
Dear Wikimedians from India.
For those who do not know me, I am a staff member of
http://translatewiki.net, a project where most of the translation of
MediaWiki is done. MediaWiki is the software used by all wikis of the
Wikimedia Foundation. There is more to translatewiki, but I hope you may
discover that later.
I have made an analysis of the localization of MediaWiki and its extensions
with regards to use by the Wikimedia Foundation. I have done this with a
scope of the 50 languages with the most speakers in the world[1]. As India
is an enormous country, with a long history, it is no surprise that many
languages are spoken by a lot of people.
For India the following languages make the top 50 of most spoken languages
in the world: Hindi (3), Bengali (10), Gujarati (34), Kannada (33),
Malayalam (39), Marathi (17), Nepali (43), Oriya (42), Punjabi (15), Sindhi
(37), Tamil (28), Telugu (20), and Urdu (29). Some of these languages have a
fair level of localization (Telugu and Hindi are doing OK, but not
excellent), but many others have very poor localization (Oriya and Urdu are
doing particularly bad)[1].
As I do not speak or read any languages that are not in a Latin, Greek or
Cyrillic script, and live in the Netherlands, it is hard for me to crowd
source translators for these languages. I am in dire need of structural help
in that area. Having Wikimedia India formed is something I recognize as an
enormous opportunity for getting the localization level of languages spoken
in India to a higher level. It will enable more users to experience and
enjoy the freedoms that we as Wikimedians try to create and provide.
Please help me help in getting India's languages gain more ground and
availability in the Wikimedia universe. Ideally I would like some kind of an
ambassador from your community to spread the word and focus on getting more
and more localization done for languages spoken in India. If you are
interested in contributing as a translator, please visit translatewiki.net.
If you are interested in investing time on a higher level, please contact me
on-wiki, on this list, or by private e-mail so we can work something out.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Siebrand Mazeland
translatewiki.net staff
[1]
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Project:MediaWiki_localisation_in_the_50_most_
spoken_languages
[2] http://www.mediawiki.org
Hi
I am glad to report that I have conducted first Telugu wiki academy
conducted on 6 Oct 2009 at Chirala engineering college, chirala, a
small coastal town in Prakasam district Andhra Pradesh, with kind
cooperation from the college authorities.
About 120 third and final year engineering students participated in
the three hour session in which about 1.5 hours were spent on hands on
practice with telugu typing and changes to the articles in telugu
wikipedia. Lab facility with about 60 computers and 2 MB internet
pipe was very helpful in making this event a success. There were
minor technical glitches like wikipedia limiting access to only 6
accounts from the IP proxy. which need to be addressed for doing
events like this in future.
As Andhra pradesh has over 600 such engineering colleges, doing one
such event in each college can give a boost to promoting Telugu
wikipedia.
More on this on my blog http://teluginux.blogspot.com in a week's time.
Regards
Arjun
http://teluginux.blogspot.com (in Telugu)
http://tech4society.blogspot.com (in english)
--
Sent from my mobile device
If the tentative plan fructifies, *there will be an online encyclopedia in
Kannada*, similar to Wikipedia in English, an online encyclopedia, expected
to launch on November 1 by the CM BS Yeddyurappa.
>From the below link.
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=KDA%E2%80%99S+big+plans…
Any idea about the license that is going to be used in this online
encyclopedia? Is Government is planning for a Wiki? Is Government is aware
about the existence of a Kannada Wikipedia?
Kannada Wikipedians, any idea about this news?
Shiju Alex
--- On Sun, 4/10/09, Vinod <vinod(a)novatium.com> wrote:
From: Vinod <vinod(a)novatium.com>
Subject: FW: my querry has remained unanswered for long
To: mahitgar(a)yahoo.co.in
Date: Sunday, 4 October, 2009, 3:53 PM
Dear Mahitgar,
Thanks for you interest in Nova netPC. Our product supports unicode fonts for regional languages. We
have tested it with Hindi and Devanagiri keyboard. We will have it in our
products in the coming two weeks. The display does support Indian fonts.
Please do get back to me in case
you have queries.
Regards
Vinod
From: Mahitgar from
Marathi Wikipedia [mailto:mahitgar@yahoo.co.in]
Sent: 02 October 2009 13:33
To: info(a)novatium.com
Cc: singapore(a)novatium.com; novasales(a)novatium.com
Subject: my querry has remained unanswered for long
--- On Sun, 19/7/09, Mahitgar from Marathi Wikipedia <mahitgar(a)yahoo.co.in>
wrote:
From: Mahitgar from Marathi Wikipedia <mahitgar@yahoo..co.in>
Subject: query about computing in Indian languages on Novanet PC
To: info(a)novatium.com
Date: Sunday, 19 July, 2009, 1:12 PM
Dear Sirs/Madam
query about computing in Indian languages on Novanet PC
Can some one find out about novanetPC and its compatibility to use Unicode
based fonts for Indian languages including that of Tamil Devnagari etc keep
us posted if anybody knows any limitations on this front .
Thanks and Regards
Mahitgar
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Here I would do an attempt to specify more areas where local languages can do a better job of knowledge contribution.
One more point I would like to draw attention of all the people that India's most of scheduled languages are having atleast a six hundred years history.I suppose all of the writers since centuries would not be dumb that we wrtie off all the knowledge and ideas they produces over a period of time and effort to go waste. We need to bring all that usefull sources and info online and share with the world by internationalising the same. This is one of the tasks always local language wikipedias do.
Here is a Times of India News link about internet reaching rural homes with special subsidies at an unbelivable cost, and BSNL partner service provider for this plan is novanet pc Unfortunately these novanet pc people did not
Unfortunately this Novatium Solutions (P)
Ltd. (
3rd Floor, Temple Towers 0
# 672, Anna Salai,
Nandanam, Chennai - 600 035
India 91-44-4205 5320 Phone : 91-44- 42955300 / 42055322 E-mail : info(a)novatium.com ) did not reply my email query whether their system will be supporting unicode and what about giving input of unicode text.
I wish chennai based wikipedians take more info about this and share with wikipedia.
Agricuture, and all areas related to botany and bio technology ,now this knowledge needs to reach rural masses in their own languages only.
Health, law and more such fields we need to identify that would be usefull to the masses and take wikimedia movement ahead.
-mahitgar
--- On Thu, 1/10/09, Mahitgar from Marathi Wikipedia <mahitgar(a)yahoo.co.in> wrote:
From: Mahitgar from Marathi Wikipedia <mahitgar(a)yahoo.co.in>
Subject: online communities in Indian languages. few figures
To: sarah.sable(a)bridgespan.org
Cc: wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Thursday, 1 October, 2009, 7:15 PM
Dear Sarah and other Indian Wikipedians,
Thanks for reading my email, I would not be able to join a strategic force myself at this moment being need to search my bread and butter. So I will share just my experience hopefully it benefits you in some way.
You said,Some people have stated that the slow growth of an Indian language wikipedias is due to people in the India's preference for using English while online
: See, here at google trends that people are searching for local langugae fonts.In india eduacational cream opts usually for technical fields
and do not have any other option than that of english so
they get used to english.But what do the rest do they also do not have option but use roman script favoring net so they end up communicating in their own languge using roman script how so ever they would be uncomfortable with that.
My answer is People are not aware that they can use their own language,how to use their language and they do not have a fair choice, since today they are not assured of availability of all communication and knowledge in their own language,and they are not being represented.
See in Maharashtra state anually some 15 ,00,000 student apear for 10th standard out of which 12,00,000 are from Marathi Languge Medium (Ref) (rest of 3 lack of english medium what is their level of fluency in english needs study). out of these 15 lack only 3 lack students are registering for Science faculty(ref) which
is dominnated by english language the rest 7.5 lack students opt for Arts and commerce studies which are predominantly in Marathi Language.and 4.5 lac students are not persuing any studies beyond 10th standard.so they remain Marathi.Since from 10th standard exam results and 11th standard admissions happen to be online so good size of students know what internet is.
So what we need, is real field sample survey studies of students of atleast 11th standard and beyond to understand thier real online preferences,do they know wikipedia,how do they perceive wikipedia and how much local language wikipedias are important to them.
SImmillerly at strategy wiki I placed a proposal for Audio/visual Presentation Competition for students by which we can
reach to student community in
easier manner(Since I have given full details at strategy wiki I avoid repeating them here), but as of now I am doubtfull of getting enough support for my proposal.
May be an activity of wikipedia teaching academy and some brand ambassador visiting individual education institutions may help.
Most of Marathi Language communities are busy with either discussions or some sort of online usually non fictional literary article written by some one and is usually discussed by rest of the community members just below that article.
since begining of my Internet usage around 1998 I remained more concentrated to Marathi Languge online communities.
Although first Marathi Community www.maayboli.com came online way back in 1996 and is still active, was and is more popular among first generation of internet users who had means and know how of their own about how to use Marathi
Language fonts on the net and is more devoted to literary activites and discussions. But rest of the people were intially handicapped since then popular os windows 98 did not support dvenagari script properly on
unicode, so a Yahoo group came up in 1998 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marathipeople2/ remained most popular among people who did not have access to Marathi fonts and second generation of Marathi Internet
users until orcut communities came online for next generation and latest in use is ofcourse is face book for all those who donot know how to type and use Marathi on internet; and that they are largest.
But here at all these places facility to type Marathi was not there around the same time wikipedia did begin its jourmey http://www.manogat.com/ came up with inbuilt facility to type Marathi and with a spell checker and ate into followers of earlier maayboli and marathi people2 and along with its own support mainly coming from Non resident Marathi Languge community and ladies, many people started their own communities to have more indipendace of thought from conservative www.manogat.com but all of them mainly followed manogat like drupal cms format.
www.maayboli.com still boasts of around one lack of monthly hits,actual membership is not known but I suspect to be around 25000-30000,the next number is of Manogat
with may be a membership around
15000-20000 intialy it may have had huge membership but as mentioned earlier newly mushroomed drupal based http://mr.upakram.org/ , http://www.misalpav.com/ and alikes ate into memberships haveing each around 5000-10000 each.
Ofcourse these figures are still miniscule if you take into account annualy 15,00,000 students pass out of 10th standard and are generaly aware and has their own or outside internet availability.(Last year I had a 12th pass officeboy who knew about english and Marathi Wikipedia). Mainly still majority of the people do not know how to type in Marathi on a computer or on net.Those who are their on Marathi languge communities are those who have an extra affection towards literature and languge and socially from higher strata many of them who are settled in USA or main metropolies.
Intially I campaigned for marathi wikipedia for quite a long among these online marathi communities with a
hope I would get a support but did not get support more than handfull of them, may be 4-6 people to edit wikipedia that to over last four years.
Why we did not get the support ?Well I had my list of observations the first and foremost Until almost last year we on Marathi wikipedia did not give inbuilt typing facility to avoid using java, and all these keyboards are phonetic and not inscript so it takes a long time to type a proper size article any thing between 4-6 hours for experienced person.Marathi Languge has do have need of field support from network engineers on how to enable inscript keyboard on windows XP which can improve awareness and speeds.
Besides currently used marathi wikipedia inbuilt key board confuses newcomers between : and तः this and another widely used baraha fonts । sign confuses with wikipedia | pipe sign specialy I found it to be
turn down problem for old generation people, who feel that they are doing some blunder and avoid editing wikipedia.
Secondly, we were and are encyclopedia and most of the content written by Marathi People usually an original reasearch with lot of endorsement of certain aspects and lot of exageration with adjecteves and so any one try to write gets deleted immidiately and most of the times no notice is given why certain writing is deleted and although we have lot of support pages, we did not have any support pages on how to write unbiased content in encyclopedic fashion.
Again Drupal based marathi communities allow discussion and debates
on any topic and people can take positions without giving references.Most of Marathi internet users were and are not used to giving references and that is an unavoidable handicap for
them. And if any one at all try to use <ref> tag </ref> gets turned down by a big red color error message.
Discussion pages can be a good training and grooming ground for newcomers but, Drupal set up provides them with a form for discussion just below the main page and discussion threads can be more easily followed , here again in wikipedia discussion we do not have organised thread provision, new comers end up using --- lines to show end of their discussion and a newcomer coming after him wont be able to edit the section properly gets turned down.Besides drupal community discussions are more open and less serious where as wikipedia discussions are usualy remain to topics ,serious in nature and there to some old timers are quite strong handed for newcomers bit unexpected and not polite enough.
And may be, webmasters most of them are from open software community,but still see better opportunity in
promoting drupal since they know how to install drupal set up and how to get a website up.
There were few more objections which came during certain discussions and we were able to handle them success fully since those who did raise objections were the persons who came back to edit wikipedia eventulay if not immidiately then slowly over last four years
Thanks and Regards
-Mahitgar
Dear Mahitgar and other Indian Wikipedians,
I am doing analysis to help support the Wikimedia strategic planning
task force on Indian language Wikipedias. I am very interested in
learning more about examples of successful online communities in Indian
languages. Some people have stated that the slow growth of an Indian
language wikipedias is due to people in the India's preference for using
English while online. However, the existence of these online
communities in Marathi that Mahitgar mentions imply
that this is not
the
case. It would be great if someone could help me by providing some
examples of these online communities. I would love to know what type of
content to their users create, the number of users, and any information
about their growth rate. The more understanding we have of what makes
these communities successful the better we
can work to help build strong
Indian language wikipedias Anyone who could point me in the right
direction would be much thanked. I would do some of the research
myself, but unfortunately, I do not speak any Indian languages.
Thanks so much for everybody's help and participation in the strategic
planning process. You can contact me directly.
Best,
Sarah
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Dear Sarah and other Indian Wikipedians,
Thanks for reading my email, I would not be able to join a strategic force myself at this moment being need to search my bread and butter. So I will share just my experience hopefully it benefits you in some way.
You said,Some people have stated that the slow growth of an Indian language wikipedias is due to people in the India's preference for using English while online
: See, here at google trends that people are searching for local langugae fonts.In india eduacational cream opts usually for technical fields and do not have any other option than that of english so
they get used to english.But what do the rest do they also do not have option but use roman script favoring net so they end up communicating in their own languge using roman script how so ever they would be uncomfortable with that.
My answer is People are not aware that they can use their own language,how to use their language and they do not have a fair choice, since today they are not assured of availability of all communication and knowledge in their own language,and they are not being represented.
See in Maharashtra state anually some 15 ,00,000 student apear for 10th standard out of which 12,00,000 are from Marathi Languge Medium (Ref) (rest of 3 lack of english medium what is their level of fluency in english needs study). out of these 15 lack only 3 lack students are registering for Science faculty(ref) which
is dominnated by english language the rest 7.5 lack students opt for Arts and commerce studies which are predominantly in Marathi Language.and 4.5 lac students are not persuing any studies beyond 10th standard.so they remain Marathi.Since from 10th standard exam results and 11th standard admissions happen to be online so good size of students know what internet is.
So what we need, is real field sample survey studies of students of atleast 11th standard and beyond to understand thier real online preferences,do they know wikipedia,how do they perceive wikipedia and how much local language wikipedias are important to them.
SImmillerly at strategy wiki I placed a proposal for Audio/visual Presentation Competition for students by which we can reach to student community in
easier manner(Since I have given full details at strategy wiki I avoid repeating them here), but as of now I am doubtfull of getting enough support for my proposal.
May be an activity of wikipedia teaching academy and some brand ambassador visiting individual education institutions may help.
Most of Marathi Language communities are busy with either discussions or some sort of online usually non fictional literary article written by some one and is usually discussed by rest of the community members just below that article.
since begining of my Internet usage around 1998 I remained more concentrated to Marathi Languge online communities.
Although first Marathi Community www.maayboli.com came online way back in 1996 and is still active, was and is more popular among first generation of internet users who had means and know how of their own about how to use Marathi
Language fonts on the net and is more devoted to literary activites and discussions. But rest of the people were intially handicapped since then popular os windows 98 did not support dvenagari script properly on
unicode, so a Yahoo group came up in 1998 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marathipeople2/ remained most popular among people who did not have access to Marathi fonts and second generation of Marathi Internet
users until orcut communities came online for next generation and latest in use is ofcourse is face book for all those who donot know how to type and use Marathi on internet; and that they are largest.
But here at all these places facility to type Marathi was not there around the same time wikipedia did begin its jourmey http://www.manogat.com/ came up with inbuilt facility to type Marathi and with a spell checker and ate into followers of earlier maayboli and marathi people2 and along with its own support mainly coming from Non resident Marathi Languge community and ladies, many people started their own communities to have more indipendace of thought from conservative www.manogat.com but all of them mainly followed manogat like drupal cms format.
www.maayboli.com still boasts of around one lack of monthly hits,actual membership is not known but I suspect to be around 25000-30000,the next number is of Manogat
with may be a membership around
15000-20000 intialy it may have had huge membership but as mentioned earlier newly mushroomed drupal based http://mr.upakram.org/ , http://www.misalpav.com/ and alikes ate into memberships haveing each around 5000-10000 each.
Ofcourse these figures are still miniscule if you take into account annualy 15,00,000 students pass out of 10th standard and are generaly aware and has their own or outside internet availability.(Last year I had a 12th pass officeboy who knew about english and Marathi Wikipedia). Mainly still majority of the people do not know how to type in Marathi on a computer or on net.Those who are their on Marathi languge communities are those who have an extra affection towards literature and languge and socially from higher strata many of them who are settled in USA or main metropolies.
Intially I campaigned for marathi wikipedia for quite a long among these online marathi communities with a
hope I would get a support but did not get support more than handfull of them, may be 4-6 people to edit wikipedia that to over last four years.
Why we did not get the support ?Well I had my list of observations the first and foremost Until almost last year we on Marathi wikipedia did not give inbuilt typing facility to avoid using java, and all these keyboards are phonetic and not inscript so it takes a long time to type a proper size article any thing between 4-6 hours for experienced person.Marathi Languge has do have need of field support from network engineers on how to enable inscript keyboard on windows XP which can improve awareness and speeds.
Besides currently used marathi wikipedia inbuilt key board confuses newcomers between : and तः this and another widely used baraha fonts । sign confuses with wikipedia | pipe sign specialy I found it to be
turn down problem for old generation people, who feel that they are doing some blunder and avoid editing wikipedia.
Secondly, we were and are encyclopedia and most of the content written by Marathi People usually an original reasearch with lot of endorsement of certain aspects and lot of exageration with adjecteves and so any one try to write gets deleted immidiately and most of the times no notice is given why certain writing is deleted and although we have lot of support pages, we did not have any support pages on how to write unbiased content in encyclopedic fashion.
Again Drupal based marathi communities allow discussion and debates
on any topic and people can take positions without giving references.Most of Marathi internet users were and are not used to giving references and that is an unavoidable handicap for
them. And if any one at all try to use <ref> tag </ref> gets turned down by a big red color error message.
Discussion pages can be a good training and grooming ground for newcomers but, Drupal set up provides them with a form for discussion just below the main page and discussion threads can be more easily followed , here again in wikipedia discussion we do not have organised thread provision, new comers end up using --- lines to show end of their discussion and a newcomer coming after him wont be able to edit the section properly gets turned down.Besides drupal community discussions are more open and less serious where as wikipedia discussions are usualy remain to topics ,serious in nature and there to some old timers are quite strong handed for newcomers bit unexpected and not polite enough.
And may be, webmasters most of them are from open software community,but still see better opportunity in
promoting drupal since they know how to install drupal set up and how to get a website up.
There were few more objections which came during certain discussions and we were able to handle them success fully since those who did raise objections were the persons who came back to edit wikipedia eventulay if not immidiately then slowly over last four years
Thanks and Regards
-Mahitgar
Dear Mahitgar and other Indian Wikipedians,
I am doing analysis to help support the Wikimedia strategic planning
task force on Indian language Wikipedias. I am very interested in
learning more about examples of successful online communities in Indian
languages. Some people have stated that the slow growth of an Indian
language wikipedias is due to people in the India's preference for using
English while online. However, the existence of these online
communities in Marathi that Mahitgar mentions imply
that this is not
the
case. It would be great if someone could help me by providing some
examples of these online communities. I would love to know what type of
content to their users create, the number of users, and any information
about their growth rate. The more understanding we have of what makes
these communities successful the better we
can work to help build strong
Indian language wikipedias Anyone who could point me in the right
direction would be much thanked. I would do some of the research
myself, but unfortunately, I do not speak any Indian languages.
Thanks so much for everybody's help and participation in the strategic
planning process. You can contact me directly.
Best,
Sarah
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