On 10 March 2008, Sidin Vadukut <sidin.vadukut at gmail.com> wrote:
> However one of them mentioned that it is slowly becoming more and
> more difficult for new writers to join in as contributions have
> become extremely complicated. Some of the simplest things lead to
> disputes and trivialities cause locks on certain articles.
>
> I was wondering if you guys had an opinion on this? Is Wikipedia
> increasingly becoming more and more difficult for first-timers? I am
> talking about those who intend to specialize in certain topics and
> be active and regular.
I am not sure what exactly do you mean by "contributions have become
extremely complicated". Are you referring to Wikipedia's now-somewhat
stringent standards for accepting articles? Or do you mean that the
wiki-syntax is too difficult? Or are you concerned that the cabals,
vandals and trolls are scaring away the new contributors?
As a society, Wikipedia is bound to grow more complex as it grows.
If the new contributors face a problem that they do not know how to
deal with (vandalism, another abusive user etc.), they can head over
to the new contributors' help page (the link to this page appears on
the help page):
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:New_contributors'_help_page>.
Wikipedia's standards for accepting articles have evolved over the
years. Most Wikipedians will accept that the standards have become
more stringent, but these standards are necessary because in addition
to a lot of positive contributors, Wikipedia also attracts a number of
vandals, trolls and spammers. Very short articles created without
references, inappropriate pages, images uploaded without a license or
text copied from another website are bound to get deleted. Most
newly-created articles or newly-uploaded images are deleted because
they're either copyright violation (e.g. image of the user's favorite
actress copied from a film website) or because they're outside
Wikipedia's project scope (e.g. an article on an little-known school
band). New users can avoid such experiences by learning a few basics
of contributing to Wikipedia. On the article creation page, the users
are presented with a few instructions and a link to
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Your_first_article>. Creating
an article that'll not get deleted is as simple as following these
instructions.
The disputes (trivial or non-trivial) are a part of any large
collaborative project. This is not something specific to the new
users; controversial topics (e.g. Israel-Palestine) will always
attract disputes. The new users generally find themselves embroiled in
disputes, when they make controversial edits an article without going
through the talk page archives (where the issues might have been
discussed more than once in the past). An example is the article on
Muhammad -- many new users try to remove the images from the article,
without bothering to read the talk page, where the rationale for
including the image is explained in detail.
The vandals and trolls are a serious problem. Citizendium
<http://en.citizendium.org> is trying to deal with them (and other
issues like reliability) by disallowing anonymous editing. At
Wikipedia, we have an article validation proposal
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Article_validation> in the works. It
can be tested at <http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox>
As for understanding the wiki syntax, and the Wikipedia policies and
guidelines, these are the minimum basics. The users who joined
Wikipedia three years ago also learned them.
Wikipedia is just like any other project open to public
participation. Before people start contributing, they need to learn a
few basics. The set of "basics" grow larger as the project grows larger.
Regards,
Utkarshraj
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Utcursch
Dear Friend,
Do you know any friends who use Devanagari fonts then please forward this email to them.
To read Marathi Unicode text on internet please just see on top of your computer screen's window you find a blue bar mentioning Microsoft Internet Explorer ,Below that is the second line Where in first menu is file, second is edit and third is view.Please select view menue their you find -Encoding- there you please select Unicode(UTF-8)
and you will see Marathi text in proper marathi .a little more info we are giving in english which you may feel free to forward to your friends in the intrest of Marathi Language.
Welcome! We are pleased that you have taken first step to understand how to use Marathi Language fonts on internet.
mala marathi type kase karayche he have ahe ? or How to type using Marathi font? is one of the frequently asked question(FAQs) on Marathi Wikipedia.Already several Marathi users are making thousands of edits in Marathi Language here using different different Marathi Font facilities and many facilities are freely available on internet.
A detail technical help is provided in english language at Setup For Devanagari page.To read font help in Marathi Language go to article संगणक टंक and refer गमभन टंकलेखन सुविधा or Google Marathi Font गूगल टंकलेखन सुविधा , Google Marathi Font गूगल टंकलेखन साहाय्य which gives copy paste facility,refer बराहा Direct subject to your operating systm is able to support the same;if still not comfortable try direct typing a test Marathi Font at our sister projectMarathi Wiktionary; or look for more online options at युनिकोड मध्ये टंक डाउनलोड न करता ठनलाईन लिहिणे
Besides O.S. Window XP it self now supports devanagari fonts and the related help is provided at Setup For Devanagari.
Still find defficult then revert back at Help-forum for new users.If you are using online messanger, then which one ? keep us informed we can support a live chat help also,if needed.
Thanking you, With warm regards,Helpdesk Marathi Wikipedia ~~~~
5, 50, 500, 5000 - Store N number of mails in your inbox. Go to http://help.yahoo.com/l/in/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html
Hi All,
This was one question raised, at one of the groups I am member of... I felt
it would be good if I share it with you people.
Here are some of the snippets from the mail sent to the group.
Snippet 1:
*I better go for the English websites to get that info, as it might even
help me in having discussions and exchange of ideas with a group who knows
the same language. (English is known by many and hence the group size will
be large and will have the cream too).*
Snippet 2:
*I am not criticizing the work you are doing. Infact you are doing a great
job. But, the real use of your efforts will be, when a farmer or a daily
worker wants to get information on web and browse this website for that.*
I have answered this question, and I think I am successful in converting
that person into believing local language wikipedias are good and they are
really useful :). But I personally felt that my answer was a bit vague, so
I am not going to tell what I answered to him. What would you tell, if are
going to answer these questions or concerns? Note that most (or all) of
wikipedians who contribute to Indian language wikipedias are fluent in
English also. And I believe, most of the folks who read (if any) these
wikipedias are also fluent in English.
--
Pradeep Makineni
Hoi,
For your information, a request has been made for the Maithili language.
Given that the language Maithili fulfills the requirements of the language
committee, it has the "eligible" status. This means that when the conditions
have been met, the Maithili request will be approved.
I have asked for Maithili to be enabled on BetaWik<http://translatewiki.net>i,
this means that everything is in place for this phase. I have asked for
English to be the fall back language as Hindi is currently not an option as
this language is not really supported in MediaWiki at this time (18.35% -
7.57% - 0.00%).
There has been a lot of activity at BetaWiki, when you look at the group
statistics <http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Group_statistics>, you
will find that a lot of progress has been made for the Indian languages.. I
do want to remind you that all the work done in BetaWiki will be available
in all the WMF projects (particularly Commons is of relevance here). The
localisations will also become available in the releases of the MediaWiki
software. There is a growing number of projects outside the WMF particularly
in languages other then English. With more websites using MediaWiki, it
becomes easier to find people who can contribute to our projects as well.
Thanks,
GerardM
Hoi,
In advance to a more general announcement, I am going to announce a new
project aimed to improve the localisation of MediaWiki. The details of this
project are published at
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Language_project . We are happy
that Hivos allowed us to make this project a reality..
There is a limited amount of money available, and the money available is
biased towards making MediaWiki as usable as possible in languages where it
is not really usable at the moment. We have up to 200 EURO available
(including our payment costs) for the localisation of one language. We will
offer you the choice to pay the money directly to you or when you work as a
group (for instance the Wikimedia Chapter India) you can ask us to pay it in
one go to your organisation. As a last option we have a program whereby you
can donate your money to our program "Donations, putting your money where
your mouth is". This program will pay for things like localisations in other
languages, paying for programmers to finish code that is not production
ready yet, adding features to Open Source programs like OmegaT or OmegaWiki.
If you have other suggestions for this scheme you can ask us to consider
this
In a thread on the Wikimedia India list, there was talk about the need of
Java programs to be used in MediaWiki. Finding money for a developer to
assess if these programs are safe to run in MediaWiki is something that I
would consider for a project in the "Donations, ... " project.
NB the money is to make MediaWiki useful. MediaWiki is however continuously
developed and localisation for your language is constantly needed. The best
we can achieve with money is to get localisation done for now. As MediaWiki
is what makes your Wikipedia or other project possible we urge you to help
us maintain MediaWiki as the best Wiki engine available.
Thanks,
GerardM
Stichting Open Progress
http://betawiki.orghttp://www.hivos.nl/englishhttp://openprogress.orghttp://openprogress.org/Donations%2C_putting_your_money_where_your_mouth_is
Hoi,
I want to congratualte the people of the Bengali projects for being the
first language of the Indian subcontinent to have a 100% localisation for
the MediaWiki system messages. They are powering ahead with the messages for
the MediaWiki extensions. In this way MediaWiki is truly usable for anyone,
inside or outside the Wikimedia Foundation. In this way, it shows clearly
what Open Source is about; it is usable for everyone. :)
Thanks,
GerardM