On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 19:03, Bishakha Datta <bishakhadatta@gmail.com> wrote:

So I feel like there may be three or more categories of persons for each language:

-Speakers who read and write in that lang
-Speakers who don't read and write in that lang (non or low users)
-Speakers who don't know how to read and write in that lang (illiterate, although I don't like the word)

I would say its a matrix of read / write / speak on columns and rows filled with permutation of values in the set {Proficient, Know, Preference on usage, Dont know}. It could be much more complex.

And agree with Ravi that it would be hard to get both those who are not literate in a language or low users of it to contribute in that language. For example, I would be reluctant to contribute in the languages I speak, but don't write or read in everyday, even though I am technically literate in them.

1. While its nearly impossible to convert to low/non users to contributors, there is a significant potential in them to increase the readerbase. Nothing special needs to be done, just focusing on developing content will help. I have read some amazing content which exist only in Tamil Wikipedia. When there is improvement in Indic search and people's perception to search on Indic, and if an Indic wiki has content, people(even the non/low) will invariably come and read :) This will help in numbers look better :D

2. While I still consider myself not to be a contributor on Tamil Wiki since I largely restrict myself to village pump, Ravi / many others in tamil community says am a Tamil Wiki community member. So one can be part of community without contributing :) and still be doing something. Out of curiosity i checked my edit count, that just crossed 1000 coincidentally :D . My article space edits have mostly been using HotCat and I dont think it requires great deal of linguistic competence to do it. I completely agree, understand and can relate to the reluctancy to contribute, since I have the same with me and just dont go to article space on Tamil wiki often(even for the HotCat usage). So there's a story of low/non user in a community :)