Hi Everyone,
I wanted to introduce myself and also use this listserv for recruiting for a study that I am doing to understand the user experience of reading the Wikipedia on the mobile phone and understand the possibilities/feasibilities of using the mobile phone as a platform for editing the Wikipedia.
I am Mani Pande, and I recently joined the Global Development team at Wikipedia to do research that will help Wikipedia grow in the global south. I work closely with other folks in the global development team (Barry, Kul etc) who many of you probably know. I have worked as a researcher for the last 6 years, and have a PhD in Sociology. Before joining Wikipedia, I worked for Institute for the Future, a forecasting research company, based in Palo Alto, CA.
I would like to recruit both Wikipedia readers and editors in India. I am looking to speak with folks who either read the Wikipedia on the phone (at least once a week) or have made some edits (two or more) on the phone in the last six months. I would like to conduct an interview over Skype. The interview would be about an hour. It would touch on the questions listed below.
If you are interested in participating in the study, please email me at mpande@wikimedia.org. Or if you believe someone else will be a great fit for this study then please feel forward this email.
Thanks in advance Mani
Interview Objectives
Find out whether mobile phone can be used as a platform for reading, editing & contributing, to the Wikipedia (English & other Indian regional languages like Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam etc.)
Research questions:
How is mobile phone being used as a platform for contributing to Wikipedia? What kinds of contributions are users making to the Wikipedia on the mobile phone currently? Editing already existing content, contributing new content, uploading pictures etc. What are the benefits? What are the pain-points? What are the drivers? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for contributing content change in the next one year? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for contributing content change in the next five years? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How is mobile phone being used for reading Wikipedia content? What kind of content is accessed on the phone? What are the benefits? What are the pain-points? What are the drivers? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for reading content change in the next one year? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for reading content change in the next five years? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How do outside trends/shifts in society, technology. Economy, environment and politics (STEEP) affect the emergence of mobile phone for reading and editing Wikipedia? How do they affect user behaviors?
On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 10:27 PM, Mani Pande mpande@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Everyone,
I wanted to introduce myself and also use this listserv for recruiting for a study that I am doing to understand the user experience of reading the Wikipedia on the mobile phone and understand the possibilities/feasibilities of using the mobile phone as a platform for editing the Wikipedia.
Consumer price level smart phones which can support reading and editing
Indian languages have started appearing in the scene just now (Nokia C3 at 6500/-approx is available for Hindi and three other devanagari type languages). The data access prices have not yet fallen unlike voice communication and sms prices. It will be better to do the survey after six months.
Cheers Arjun
Hi Arjuna, Thanks for your feedback. It is a good point that data cost continue to be prohibitive. But our preliminary research has shown that users in India are using mobile phones (not just smart phones) which have a data plan (pre-paid or post paid) to access the Wikipedia.
I am interested in speaking with these users. I am planing to do qualitative interviews with a small sample of users, it is not a survey. I will keep your advice in mind, if we take the survey route, in the coming year.
Thanks Mani
On Oct 25, 2010, at 5:23 PM, arjuna rao chavala wrote:
On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 10:27 PM, Mani Pande mpande@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi Everyone,
I wanted to introduce myself and also use this listserv for recruiting for a study that I am doing to understand the user experience of reading the Wikipedia on the mobile phone and understand the possibilities/feasibilities of using the mobile phone as a platform for editing the Wikipedia.
Consumer price level smart phones which can support reading and editing Indian languages have started appearing in the scene just now (Nokia C3 at 6500/-approx is available for Hindi and three other devanagari type languages). The data access prices have not yet fallen unlike voice communication and sms prices. It will be better to do the survey after six months.
Cheers Arjun _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Arjuna makes a good point on language support. As for the data costs, don't some providers (I know MTS does) provide access to Wikipedia for free?
Thank you.
Best,
Gautam ________ http://social.prathambooks.org/
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 10:34, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.org wrote:
Arjuna makes a good point on language support. As for the data costs, don't some providers (I know MTS does) provide access to Wikipedia for free?
Have you used MTS free Wikipedia? I overheard they are falsely advertising but actually it costs something. (like only en.wiki is free and data charges apply for images on the article from commons). I am not very sure on this, anyone who uses MTS can confirm. But i have to disagree with Arjuna and feel data charges have come down significantly over a period of time now though may still not be affordable to a common man on the street when compared to the dead low voice tariff. More and more alternate ways of consuming Wikipedia on mobile needs to be developed. I particularly find the Wikipedia layer on Google maps for mobile useful while exploring unknown territories.
I agree with Srikanth on this issue. I have been using Wikipedia on my phone for over a year and a half, and have even edited several articles from my phone.
On 26 October 2010 11:30, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 10:34, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.orgwrote:
Arjuna makes a good point on language support. As for the data costs, don't some providers (I know MTS does) provide access to Wikipedia for free?
Have you used MTS free Wikipedia? I overheard they are falsely advertising but actually it costs something. (like only en.wiki is free and data charges apply for images on the article from commons). I am not very sure on this, anyone who uses MTS can confirm. But i have to disagree with Arjuna and feel data charges have come down significantly over a period of time now though may still not be affordable to a common man on the street when compared to the dead low voice tariff. More and more alternate ways of consuming Wikipedia on mobile needs to be developed. I particularly find the Wikipedia layer on Google maps for mobile useful while exploring unknown territories.
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Data charges definitely is coming down and will be coming down more with the 3G war in India.
The support for other languages and unicode should be improved in the mobiles.
I have tried ml wikipedia in the Nokia E series with MiniOpera browser. It was really a bad experience for me. The fonts are not properly displaying. Hope to see more improvements especially on the unicode support and fonts in the mobile browsers.
regards Ramesh ng
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 6:25 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < rsrikanth05@gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with Srikanth on this issue. I have been using Wikipedia on my phone for over a year and a half, and have even edited several articles from my phone.
On 26 October 2010 11:30, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 10:34, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.orgwrote:
Arjuna makes a good point on language support. As for the data costs, don't some providers (I know MTS does) provide access to Wikipedia for free?
Have you used MTS free Wikipedia? I overheard they are falsely advertising but actually it costs something. (like only en.wiki is free and data charges apply for images on the article from commons). I am not very sure on this, anyone who uses MTS can confirm. But i have to disagree with Arjuna and feel data charges have come down significantly over a period of time now though may still not be affordable to a common man on the street when compared to the dead low voice tariff. More and more alternate ways of consuming Wikipedia on mobile needs to be developed. I particularly find the Wikipedia layer on Google maps for mobile useful while exploring unknown territories.
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
-- Regards, ME. Wear a Lungi, Support the Movement My infrastructure invasion... plus other images too.. on Wikimedia Commons. http://bit.ly/d50SIq
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Ramesh,
Could you try http://ml.m.wikipedia.org/ from your phone? (Of course, it'll still need the fonts.) To my knowledge, Malayalam Wikipedia is the only Indian Wikipedia to have a mobile interface (I could be wrong). For Tamil Wikipedia, only the final steps are pending.
- Sundar "That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted." - George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
From: Ramesh N G rameshng@gmail.com To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, October 26, 2010 6:30:59 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] mobile editing & reading of Wikipedia
Data charges definitely is coming down and will be coming down more with the 3G war in India.
The support for other languages and unicode should be improved in the mobiles.
I have tried ml wikipedia in the Nokia E series with MiniOpera browser. It was really a bad experience for me. The fonts are not properly displaying. Hope to see more improvements especially on the unicode support and fonts in the mobile browsers.
regards Ramesh ng
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 6:25 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikanth05@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with Srikanth on this issue.
I have been using Wikipedia on my phone for over a year and a half, and have even edited several articles from my phone.
On 26 October 2010 11:30, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 10:34, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.org wrote:
Arjuna makes a good point on language support. As for the data costs,
don't some providers (I know MTS does) provide access to Wikipedia for free?
Have you used MTS free Wikipedia? I overheard they are falsely advertising but actually it costs something. (like only en.wiki is free and data charges apply for images on the article from commons). I am not very sure on this, anyone who uses MTS can confirm. But i have to disagree with Arjuna and feel data charges have come down significantly over a period of time now though may still not be affordable to a common man on the street when compared to the dead low voice tariff. More and more alternate ways of consuming Wikipedia on mobile needs to be developed. I particularly find the Wikipedia layer on Google maps for mobile useful while exploring unknown territories.
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
-- Regards, ME. Wear a Lungi, Support the Movement My infrastructure invasion... plus other images too.. on Wikimedia Commons. http://bit.ly/d50SIq
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
I have tried Malayalam Wikipedia on my android 2.1 mobile. Rendering is very poor :( . Instead of letters it just shows the squares. But on Opera browser you can see the letters (except unicode 5.1 chillu lettes (atomic chillu letters)) by doing the hack mentioned on this blog posthttp://anoopnarayanan.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/malayalam-on-android-mobiles/. AFAIK only opera browser has the ability to render Indic scripts on mobiles.
Never tried to edit Malayalam wikipedia on mobiles!
Thanks Anoop
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:49 PM, BalaSundaraRaman sundarbecse@yahoo.comwrote:
Ramesh,
Could you try http://ml.m.wikipedia.org/ from your phone? (Of course, it'll still need the fonts.) To my knowledge, Malayalam Wikipedia is the only Indian Wikipedia to have a mobile interface (I could be wrong). For Tamil Wikipedia, only the final steps are pending.
- Sundar
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
*From:* Ramesh N G rameshng@gmail.com *To:* wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org *Sent:* Tue, October 26, 2010 6:30:59 PM *Subject:* Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] mobile editing & reading of Wikipedia
Data charges definitely is coming down and will be coming down more with the 3G war in India.
The support for other languages and unicode should be improved in the mobiles.
I have tried ml wikipedia in the Nokia E series with MiniOpera browser. It was really a bad experience for me. The fonts are not properly displaying. Hope to see more improvements especially on the unicode support and fonts in the mobile browsers.
regards Ramesh ng
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 6:25 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < rsrikanth05@gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with Srikanth on this issue. I have been using Wikipedia on my phone for over a year and a half, and have even edited several articles from my phone.
On 26 October 2010 11:30, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 10:34, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.orgwrote:
Arjuna makes a good point on language support. As for the data costs, don't some providers (I know MTS does) provide access to Wikipedia for free?
Have you used MTS free Wikipedia? I overheard they are falsely advertising but actually it costs something. (like only en.wiki is free and data charges apply for images on the article from commons). I am not very sure on this, anyone who uses MTS can confirm. But i have to disagree with Arjuna and feel data charges have come down significantly over a period of time now though may still not be affordable to a common man on the street when compared to the dead low voice tariff. More and more alternate ways of consuming Wikipedia on mobile needs to be developed. I particularly find the Wikipedia layer on Google maps for mobile useful while exploring unknown territories.
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
-- Regards, ME. Wear a Lungi, Support the Movement My infrastructure invasion... plus other images too.. on Wikimedia Commons. http://bit.ly/d50SIq
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:58 PM, Anoop anoop.ind@gmail.com wrote:
I have tried Malayalam Wikipedia on my android 2.1 mobile. Rendering is very poor :( . Instead of letters it just shows the squares. But on Opera browser you can see the letters (except unicode 5.1 chillu lettes (atomic chillu letters)) by doing the hack mentioned on this blog posthttp://anoopnarayanan.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/malayalam-on-android-mobiles/. AFAIK only opera browser has the ability to render Indic scripts on mobiles.
Never tried to edit Malayalam wikipedia on mobiles!
Isn't that rendering via bitmap?
Rendering of Malayalam script is very bad. Same might be the case with most of the other Indian scripts. (Devanagari might have reasonable support) So this site is of not much use to Malayalam as of now, even though we are regularly updating it.
We cannot expect much as of now since the majority of the software solutions focuses only on Latin script. Hope situation will improve as the contribution from the developers working in Indic language computing increases.
Shiju Alex
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:49 PM, BalaSundaraRaman sundarbecse@yahoo.comwrote:
Ramesh,
Could you try http://ml.m.wikipedia.org/ from your phone? (Of course, it'll still need the fonts.) To my knowledge, Malayalam Wikipedia is the only Indian Wikipedia to have a mobile interface (I could be wrong). For Tamil Wikipedia, only the final steps are pending.
- Sundar
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
*From:* Ramesh N G rameshng@gmail.com
*To:* wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org *Sent:* Tue, October 26, 2010 6:30:59 PM *Subject:* Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] mobile editing & reading of Wikipedia
Data charges definitely is coming down and will be coming down more with the 3G war in India.
The support for other languages and unicode should be improved in the mobiles.
I have tried ml wikipedia in the Nokia E series with MiniOpera browser. It was really a bad experience for me. The fonts are not properly displaying. Hope to see more improvements especially on the unicode support and fonts in the mobile browsers.
regards Ramesh ng
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 6:25 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < rsrikanth05@gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with Srikanth on this issue. I have been using Wikipedia on my phone for over a year and a half, and have even edited several articles from my phone.
On 26 October 2010 11:30, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 10:34, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.orgwrote:
Arjuna makes a good point on language support. As for the data costs, don't some providers (I know MTS does) provide access to Wikipedia for free?
Have you used MTS free Wikipedia? I overheard they are falsely advertising but actually it costs something. (like only en.wiki is free and data charges apply for images on the article from commons). I am not very sure on this, anyone who uses MTS can confirm. But i have to disagree with Arjuna and feel data charges have come down significantly over a period of time now though may still not be affordable to a common man on the street when compared to the dead low voice tariff. More and more alternate ways of consuming Wikipedia on mobile needs to be developed. I particularly find the Wikipedia layer on Google maps for mobile useful while exploring unknown territories.
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
-- Regards, ME. Wear a Lungi, Support the Movement My infrastructure invasion... plus other images too.. on Wikimedia Commons. http://bit.ly/d50SIq
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Thanks for the update, Shiju. I'm able to read Tamil text on Opera Mini browser on my Nokia N72 (with some difficulty). It uses rendering "complex" scripts as images. However, editing is still a far cry.
- Sundar
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted." - George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
From: Shiju Alex shijualexonline@gmail.com To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, October 26, 2010 10:03:21 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] mobile editing & reading of Wikipedia
Rendering of Malayalam script is very bad. Same might be the case with most of the other Indian scripts. (Devanagari might have reasonable support) So this site is of not much use to Malayalam as of now, even though we are regularly updating it.
We cannot expect much as of now since the majority of the software solutions focuses only on Latin script. Hope situation will improve as the contribution from the developers working in Indic language computing increases.
Shiju Alex
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:49 PM, BalaSundaraRaman sundarbecse@yahoo.com
wrote:
Ramesh,
Could you try http://ml.m.wikipedia.org/ from your phone? (Of course, it'll still need the fonts.) To my knowledge, Malayalam Wikipedia is the only Indian Wikipedia to have a mobile interface (I could be wrong). For Tamil Wikipedia, only the final steps are pending.
- Sundar
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the
expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
From: Ramesh N G rameshng@gmail.com
To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, October 26, 2010 6:30:59 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] mobile editing & reading of Wikipedia
Data charges definitely is coming down and will be coming down more with the 3G
war in India.
The support for other languages and unicode should be improved in the mobiles.
I have tried ml wikipedia in the Nokia E series with MiniOpera browser. It was
really a bad experience for me. The fonts are not properly displaying. Hope to
see more improvements especially on the unicode support and fonts in the mobile
browsers.
regards Ramesh ng
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 6:25 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikanth05@gmail.com
wrote:
I agree with Srikanth on this issue.
I have been using Wikipedia on my phone for over a year and a half, and have
even edited several articles from my phone.
On 26 October 2010 11:30, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 10:34, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.org wrote:
Arjuna makes a good point on language support. As for the data costs,
don't some providers (I know MTS does) provide access to Wikipedia for free?
Have you used MTS free Wikipedia? I overheard they are falsely advertising but
actually it costs something. (like only en.wiki is free and data charges apply
for images on the article from commons). I am not very sure on this, anyone who
uses MTS can confirm. But i have to disagree with Arjuna and feel data charges
have come down significantly over a period of time now though may still not be
affordable to a common man on the street when compared to the dead low voice
tariff. More and more alternate ways of consuming Wikipedia on mobile needs to
be developed. I particularly find the Wikipedia layer on Google maps for mobile
useful while exploring unknown territories.
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
-- Regards, ME. Wear a Lungi, Support the Movement My infrastructure invasion... plus other images too.. on Wikimedia Commons. http://bit.ly/d50SIq
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
On Tuesday 26 October 2010 10:09 PM, BalaSundaraRaman wrote:
I'm able to read Tamil text on Opera Mini browser on my Nokia N72 (with some difficulty).
From: Shiju Alexshijualexonline@gmail.com
Rendering of Malayalam script is very bad. Same might be the case with most of the other Indian scripts. (Devanagari might have reasonable support) So this site is of not much use to Malayalam as of now, even though we are regularly updating it.
Atleast for some phones its not. I've a Nokia 2700 classic phone, and its Malayalam Rendering is good. With complex text rendered Opera mini, reading Malayalam websites are also not a problem. I remember once Jyothis confirmed that IOS 4 rendering for Malayalam is also good.
I bought my Nokia 2700 phone from Kerala. I think its OS is patched for south Indian languages' better display (It has built in support for Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi and English). Only problem with that phone I found is - it has no unicode 5.1 support.
It is possible to type in Malayalam from that phone, but from my perspective it is not easy to type Malayalam from that mobile even with its good Malayalam prediction database.
Thanks Ramesh, Anoop, Shiju, and Praveen for the information.
- Sundar
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted." - George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
________________________________ From: Shiju Alex shijualexonline@gmail.com To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, October 26, 2010 10:03:21 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] mobile editing & reading of Wikipedia
Rendering of Malayalam script is very bad. Same might be the case with most of the other Indian scripts. (Devanagari might have reasonable support) So this site is of not much use to Malayalam as of now, even though we are regularly updating it.
We cannot expect much as of now since the majority of the software solutions focuses only on Latin script. Hope situation will improve as the contribution from the developers working in Indic language computing increases.
Shiju Alex
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:49 PM, BalaSundaraRaman sundarbecse@yahoo.com wrote:
Ramesh,
Could you try http://ml.m.wikipedia.org/ from your phone? (Of course, it'll still need the fonts.) To my knowledge, Malayalam Wikipedia is the only Indian Wikipedia to have a mobile interface (I could be wrong). For Tamil Wikipedia, only the final steps are pending.
- Sundar
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
From: Ramesh N G rameshng@gmail.com
To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, October 26, 2010 6:30:59 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] mobile editing & reading of Wikipedia
Data charges definitely is coming down and will be coming down more with the 3G war in India.
The support for other languages and unicode should be improved in the mobiles.
I have tried ml wikipedia in the Nokia E series with MiniOpera browser. It was really a bad experience for me. The fonts are not properly displaying. Hope to see more improvements especially on the unicode support and fonts in the mobile browsers.
regards Ramesh ng
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 6:25 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikanth05@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with Srikanth on this issue.
I have been using Wikipedia on my phone for over a year and a half, and have even edited several articles from my phone.
On 26 October 2010 11:30, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 10:34, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.org wrote:
Arjuna makes a good point on language support. As for the data costs,
don't some providers (I know MTS does) provide access to Wikipedia for free?
Have you used MTS free Wikipedia? I overheard they are falsely advertising but actually it costs something. (like only en.wiki is free and data charges apply for images on the article from commons). I am not very sure on this, anyone who uses MTS can confirm. But i have to disagree with Arjuna and feel data charges have come down significantly over a period of time now though may still not be affordable to a common man on the street when compared to the dead low voice tariff. More and more alternate ways of consuming Wikipedia on mobile needs to be developed. I particularly find the Wikipedia layer on Google maps for mobile useful while exploring unknown territories.
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
-- Regards, ME. Wear a Lungi, Support the Movement My infrastructure invasion... plus other images too.. on Wikimedia Commons. http://bit.ly/d50SIq
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Could you try http://ml.m.wikipedia.org/ from your phone?
I have tried this also. It has the similar issue of the fonts. The chillus of malayalam is another issue while displaying. I could read it, but as far as the usability, it is of no use.
regards
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:49 PM, BalaSundaraRaman sundarbecse@yahoo.comwrote:
Ramesh,
Could you try http://ml.m.wikipedia.org/ from your phone? (Of course, it'll still need the fonts.) To my knowledge, Malayalam Wikipedia is the only Indian Wikipedia to have a mobile interface (I could be wrong). For Tamil Wikipedia, only the final steps are pending.
- Sundar
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture
*From:* Ramesh N G rameshng@gmail.com *To:* wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org *Sent:* Tue, October 26, 2010 6:30:59 PM *Subject:* Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] mobile editing & reading of Wikipedia
Data charges definitely is coming down and will be coming down more with the 3G war in India.
The support for other languages and unicode should be improved in the mobiles.
I have tried ml wikipedia in the Nokia E series with MiniOpera browser. It was really a bad experience for me. The fonts are not properly displaying. Hope to see more improvements especially on the unicode support and fonts in the mobile browsers.
regards Ramesh ng
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 6:25 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < rsrikanth05@gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with Srikanth on this issue. I have been using Wikipedia on my phone for over a year and a half, and have even edited several articles from my phone.
On 26 October 2010 11:30, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.comwrote:
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 10:34, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.orgwrote:
Arjuna makes a good point on language support. As for the data costs, don't some providers (I know MTS does) provide access to Wikipedia for free?
Have you used MTS free Wikipedia? I overheard they are falsely advertising but actually it costs something. (like only en.wiki is free and data charges apply for images on the article from commons). I am not very sure on this, anyone who uses MTS can confirm. But i have to disagree with Arjuna and feel data charges have come down significantly over a period of time now though may still not be affordable to a common man on the street when compared to the dead low voice tariff. More and more alternate ways of consuming Wikipedia on mobile needs to be developed. I particularly find the Wikipedia layer on Google maps for mobile useful while exploring unknown territories.
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On 26 October 2010 11:30, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
Have you used MTS free Wikipedia?
I have to confess, I have not. Only going by the ads. The other thing is lack of Unicode support. Andriod doesn't support Unicode, IIRC.
Thank you.
Best,
Gautam ________ http://social.prathambooks.org/
Hoi, I doubt very much that Android does not support Unicode. It may not have the fonts that you need. Thanks, GerardM
On 26 October 2010 15:57, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.org wrote:
On 26 October 2010 11:30, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
Have you used MTS free Wikipedia?
I have to confess, I have not. Only going by the ads. The other thing is lack of Unicode support. Andriod doesn't support Unicode, IIRC.
Thank you.
Best,
Gautam ________ http://social.prathambooks.org/
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On 26 October 2010 19:32, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
I doubt very much that Android does not support Unicode. It may not have the fonts that you need.
Very possible I might be wrong but I did find this:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5925
Thank you.
Best,
Gautam ________ http://social.prathambooks.org/
Hoi, In this thread you find your answer: ****** Comment 4 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5925#c4 by petrosyan http://code.google.com/u/petrosyan/, Jan 08, 2010
Android 1.5 supports embedded CSS fonts, and you can use any unicode font you want to.
For a demo of embedded CSS fonts see http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?
id=4230#c3
They removed this feature from Android 2.0 and this has been filed as a bug issue
4448 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4448.
****** So Android uses Unicode fonts, fonts may not be available.. Just complain LOUDLY and PUBLICLY and together that not supporting fonts for Indic languages is not acceptable in India (and outside of India <grin> ). Thanks, GerardM
On 26 October 2010 16:05, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.org wrote:
On 26 October 2010 19:32, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
I doubt very much that Android does not support Unicode. It may not have
the
fonts that you need.
Very possible I might be wrong but I did find this:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5925
Thank you.
Best,
Gautam ________ http://social.prathambooks.org/
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On 26 October 2010 19:44, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
So Android uses Unicode fonts, fonts may not be available.. Just complain LOUDLY and PUBLICLY and together that not supporting fonts for Indic languages is not acceptable in India (and outside of India <grin> ). Thanks,
=) Indeed!
Thank you.
Best,
Gautam ________ http://social.prathambooks.org/
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 7:44 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
So Android uses Unicode fonts, fonts may not be available.. Just complain LOUDLY and PUBLICLY and together that not supporting fonts for Indic languages is not acceptable in India (and outside of India <grin> ).
Android 1.5 did not support Indic rendering at all. AFAIK, this problem continued until 2.0.
Android 2.1 does not support web fonts and Indic fonts are not shipped with any device I know of.
Android 2.2 does support web fonts and indic rendering, but doesn't ship with fonts either. Here's a quick test page for anyone who wants to check from their phone: http://experimenting.in/css3/webfonts/hindifontsdemo/devanagarifonts.htm
Hi Everyone,
I am still looking for participants for the study on Wikipedia usage on the mobile phone. I am relaxing the criteria for recruitment, and I am hoping more Wikipedians will qualify for the study. If you read Wikipedia on the phone (English and Indic languages) or have edited any Wikipedia on the phone in the last one year, please email me at mpande@wikimedia.org. Only readers are also welcome :) I prefer folks who read Indic languages on the phone.
It is really important that we conduct this study to provide the right kind of user experience to Wikipedia readers and editors in India on a mobile. Also, we need to understand user needs, experiences and pain points to help Wikipedia grow in India. So please email me back, if you are willing to participate in the study.
I would ideally like to conduct the interviews over Skype, and it would take about an hour. I have provided some details of the study, please see below.
Thanks in advance Mani
Interview Objectives
Find out whether mobile phone can be used as a platform for reading, editing & contributing, to the Wikipedia (English & other Indian regional languages like Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam etc.)
Research questions:
How is mobile phone being used as a platform for contributing to Wikipedia? What kinds of contributions are users making to the Wikipedia on the mobile phone currently? Editing already existing content, contributing new content, uploading pictures etc. What are the benefits? What are the pain-points? What are the drivers? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for contributing content change in the next one year? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for contributing content change in the next five years? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How is mobile phone being used for reading Wikipedia content? What kind of content is accessed on the phone? What are the benefits? What are the pain-points? What are the drivers? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for reading content change in the next one year? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for reading content change in the next five years? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How do outside trends/shifts in society, technology. Economy, environment and politics (STEEP) affect the emergence of mobile phone for reading and editing Wikipedia? How do they affect user behaviors?
Hoi Mani, I am now subscribed on a gentlemen on twitter that expressed really interesting and imho relevant observations about telephony and web sites in India.
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2010/10/about-foss-and-telephony-in-indi...
The remarks are quite strong and are not limited to India. I would love to know a WMF reaction on this. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 November 2010 17:04, Mani Pande mpande@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Everyone,
I am still looking for participants for the study on Wikipedia usage on the mobile phone. I am relaxing the criteria for recruitment, and I am hoping more Wikipedians will qualify for the study. If you read Wikipedia on the phone (English and Indic languages) or have edited any Wikipedia on the phone in the last one year, please email me at mpande@wikimedia.org. Only readers are also welcome :) I prefer folks who read Indic languages on the phone.
It is really important that we conduct this study to provide the right kind of user experience to Wikipedia readers and editors in India on a mobile. Also, we need to understand user needs, experiences and pain points to help Wikipedia grow in India. So please email me back, if you are willing to participate in the study.
I would ideally like to conduct the interviews over Skype, and it would take about an hour. I have provided some details of the study, please see below.
Thanks in advance Mani
*Interview Objectives*
Find out whether mobile phone can be used as a platform for reading, editing & contributing, to the Wikipedia (English & other Indian regional languages like Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam etc.)
Research questions:
- How is mobile phone being used as a platform for contributing to
Wikipedia? What kinds of contributions are users making to the Wikipedia on the mobile phone currently? Editing already existing content, contributing new content, uploading pictures etc. What are the benefits? What are the pain-points? What are the drivers?
- How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for contributing
content change in the next one year? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India?
- How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for contributing
content change in the next five years? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India?
- How is mobile phone being used for reading Wikipedia content? What
kind of content is accessed on the phone? What are the benefits? What are the pain-points? What are the drivers?
- How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for reading content
change in the next one year? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India?
- How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for reading content
change in the next five years? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India?
- How do outside trends/shifts in society, technology. Economy,
environment and politics (STEEP) affect the emergence of mobile phone for reading and editing Wikipedia? How do they affect user behaviors?
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Heya guys, I think somebody like hari Prasad, Anoopan, or somebody with a high end phone, [Android/BlackBerry/iPhone/Nokia Eseries] et all, get in touch with Mani as that segment was completely left out by me, when we had our conversation.
--Regards,
On 1 November 2010 22:09, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi Mani, I am now subscribed on a gentlemen on twitter that expressed really interesting and imho relevant observations about telephony and web sites in India.
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2010/10/about-foss-and-telephony-in-indi...
The remarks are quite strong and are not limited to India. I would love to know a WMF reaction on this. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 November 2010 17:04, Mani Pande mpande@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Everyone,
I am still looking for participants for the study on Wikipedia usage on the mobile phone. I am relaxing the criteria for recruitment, and I am hoping more Wikipedians will qualify for the study. If you read Wikipedia on the phone (English and Indic languages) or have edited any Wikipedia on the phone in the last one year, please email me at mpande@wikimedia.org. Only readers are also welcome :) I prefer folks who read Indic languages on the phone.
It is really important that we conduct this study to provide the right kind of user experience to Wikipedia readers and editors in India on a mobile. Also, we need to understand user needs, experiences and pain points to help Wikipedia grow in India. So please email me back, if you are willing to participate in the study.
I would ideally like to conduct the interviews over Skype, and it would take about an hour. I have provided some details of the study, please see below.
Thanks in advance Mani
*Interview Objectives*
Find out whether mobile phone can be used as a platform for reading, editing & contributing, to the Wikipedia (English & other Indian regional languages like Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam etc.)
Research questions:
- How is mobile phone being used as a platform for contributing to
Wikipedia? What kinds of contributions are users making to the Wikipedia on the mobile phone currently? Editing already existing content, contributing new content, uploading pictures etc. What are the benefits? What are the pain-points? What are the drivers?
- How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for contributing
content change in the next one year? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India?
- How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for contributing
content change in the next five years? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India?
- How is mobile phone being used for reading Wikipedia content? What
kind of content is accessed on the phone? What are the benefits? What are the pain-points? What are the drivers?
- How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for reading content
change in the next one year? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India?
- How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for reading content
change in the next five years? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India?
- How do outside trends/shifts in society, technology. Economy,
environment and politics (STEEP) affect the emergence of mobile phone for reading and editing Wikipedia? How do they affect user behaviors?
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
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Thanks, Srikanth. I would love to hear from someone who uses a high end phone, and I can promise it would be a very interesting conversation that would help provide a better user experience for everyone who reads and edits Wikipedia on the phone :) Mani
On Nov 5, 2010, at 7:12 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote:
Heya guys, I think somebody like hari Prasad, Anoopan, or somebody with a high end phone, [Android/BlackBerry/iPhone/Nokia Eseries] et all, get in touch with Mani as that segment was completely left out by me, when we had our conversation.
--Regards,
On 1 November 2010 22:09, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote: Hoi Mani, I am now subscribed on a gentlemen on twitter that expressed really interesting and imho relevant observations about telephony and web sites in India.
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2010/10/about-foss-and-telephony-in-indi...
The remarks are quite strong and are not limited to India. I would love to know a WMF reaction on this. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 November 2010 17:04, Mani Pande mpande@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Everyone,
I am still looking for participants for the study on Wikipedia usage on the mobile phone. I am relaxing the criteria for recruitment, and I am hoping more Wikipedians will qualify for the study. If you read Wikipedia on the phone (English and Indic languages) or have edited any Wikipedia on the phone in the last one year, please email me at mpande@wikimedia.org. Only readers are also welcome :) I prefer folks who read Indic languages on the phone.
It is really important that we conduct this study to provide the right kind of user experience to Wikipedia readers and editors in India on a mobile. Also, we need to understand user needs, experiences and pain points to help Wikipedia grow in India. So please email me back, if you are willing to participate in the study.
I would ideally like to conduct the interviews over Skype, and it would take about an hour. I have provided some details of the study, please see below.
Thanks in advance Mani
Interview Objectives
Find out whether mobile phone can be used as a platform for reading, editing & contributing, to the Wikipedia (English & other Indian regional languages like Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam etc.)
Research questions:
How is mobile phone being used as a platform for contributing to Wikipedia? What kinds of contributions are users making to the Wikipedia on the mobile phone currently? Editing already existing content, contributing new content, uploading pictures etc. What are the benefits? What are the pain-points? What are the drivers? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for contributing content change in the next one year? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for contributing content change in the next five years? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How is mobile phone being used for reading Wikipedia content? What kind of content is accessed on the phone? What are the benefits? What are the pain-points? What are the drivers? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for reading content change in the next one year? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How will the role of mobile phone as a platform for reading content change in the next five years? What will be different about mobile devices and networks in India? How do outside trends/shifts in society, technology. Economy, environment and politics (STEEP) affect the emergence of mobile phone for reading and editing Wikipedia? How do they affect user behaviors?
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