Hi all,<br><br>It was quite overwhelming to see loads of people joining in for the Kannada Wikipedia meet-up beyond the expected numbers!<br><br><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hpnadig/5290761488/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/hpnadig/5290761488/</a><br>
<br>It was thought that less people would turn up given the difficulty getting to the venue and more importantly the holiday season. But it turned out to be a great day discussing Kannada Wikipedia and having some fun as well. <br>
<br>Most of the audience felt that everyone should do a bit more to improve Kannada version, and the difficulty mainly was in the &#39;input method&#39; for Kannada and fonts. <br><br>There was this active set of several Wikimedians from Kannada wiktionary (which has of late been faring quite well). Few people using Google translator toolkit to add articles to Kannada Wikipedia were also present from the host, inetFrame solutions. There was an interaction between community members and this team on the translation process. Several doubts were resolved and few issues were sorted out. It was decided that a  feedback/guidelines page would be put up on the Wiki for everyone using Google translator toolkit or the Microsoft Bhasha tool including those that were discussed today.<br>
<br>There was discussion about bringing back the weekly collaborations that were happening once upon a time. Community members were also keen to know more about using the Google kit to translate lengthy articles.<br><br>It was great fun discussing about translations and sharing some experiences on Wikipedia. Several people added in their thoughts about translations and about improving the overall quality of articles. <br>
<br>It was decided that work should be started on putting up videos to help normal (non-techie) users edit Wikipedia. *[In fact, it would be a good idea to start this for most of the Indian language Wikipedias - drop me an email if any of you are interested in participating]<br>
<br>Some of them (especially some contributors who have been on and off on the wiki due to several roadblocks they faced while editing) were keen to know whether a PDF with hands-on FAQ (an e-book) could be readied in Kannada that would help them figure out how to overcome the issues they face without having to contact sysops or active editors who already have their hands full. *[Any volunteers for this one? Again, we could do the same for all Indian languages. Sharing what we&#39;ve learned all these days editing Wikipedia should be fun. Please enlist by dropping an email off the list.]<br>
<br>The participants were keen to have regular meet-ups of the kind that would allow more interactions off-line to clear the doubts, help each other clearing roadblocks in contributing. <br><br>More pictures here:<br><a href="http://twitpic.com/3jejbl">http://twitpic.com/3jejbl</a><br>
<br><a href="http://twitpic.com/3jejnp">http://twitpic.com/3jejnp</a><br><br><a href="http://twitpic.com/3jdung">http://twitpic.com/3jdung</a><br><br><a href="http://twitpic.com/3jdhfx">http://twitpic.com/3jdhfx</a><br><br>
<a href="http://twitpic.com/3jddq4">http://twitpic.com/3jddq4</a><br><br>The entire album of the event is here:<br><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hpnadig/sets/72157625670383158/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/hpnadig/sets/72157625670383158/</a><br>
<br>Thanks to the inetFrame solutions who allowed us to use the venue for free and for the tea. <br><br>Cheers,<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Hari Prasad Nadig <br><a href="http://hpnadig.net" target="_blank">http://hpnadig.net</a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/hpnadig" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/hpnadig</a><br>
<a href="http://flickr.com/hpnadig" target="_blank">http://flickr.com/hpnadig</a> <br><br>