Great to see the momentum with Kannada wiki projects. Congrats for the team.
- 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: Hari Prasad Nadig <hpnadig(a)gmail.com>
To: "Kannada Wikipedia Discussion List wikikn-l(a)wikipedia.org"
<wikikn-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>rg>; Wikimedia India List
<wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sun, December 26, 2010 7:46:45 PM
Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Kannada Wikipedia meet-up of 25th December 2010
Hi all,
It was quite overwhelming to see loads of people joining in for the Kannada
Wikipedia meet-up beyond the expected numbers!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hpnadig/5290761488/
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.
Most of the audience felt that everyone should do a bit more to improve Kannada
version, and the difficulty mainly was in the 'input method' for Kannada and
fonts.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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've learned all these days editing Wikipedia should be fun. Please enlist by
dropping an email off the list.]
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.
More pictures here:
http://twitpic.com/3jejbl
http://twitpic.com/3jejnp
http://twitpic.com/3jdung
http://twitpic.com/3jdhfx
http://twitpic.com/3jddq4
The entire album of the event is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hpnadig/sets/72157625670383158/
Thanks to the inetFrame solutions who allowed us to use the venue for free and
for the tea.
Cheers,
--
Hari Prasad Nadig
http://hpnadig.net |
http://twitter.com/hpnadig
http://flickr.com/hpnadig