On 21 September 2010 17:56, theo10011 <de10011(a)gmail.com> wrote: Sure and that would explain the relatively lower sign up rates for Hindi (though it would be nice to see sign up rates for other languages too) but doesn't quite explain 90% don't edit post that. Would it be a fair assumption that creating an account on Hindi Wikipedia is to say that the user is a native Hindi speaker/writer? No other reason to create an account, no? Thank you. Best, Gautam ________ http://social.prathambooks.org/

The issue with Hindi goes beyond what is mentioned in the previous mails. The account creation in Hindi Wikipedia should not be mistaken as the account created by the native language users. After global account is enabled, lot of automatic account creations are happening. And for many people outside India , Hindi Wikipedia represent whole of India. For them the first wiki they register among Indian languages is Hindi. All these account to the total number of registered users. Added to this the total number of speakers of Hindi is always exaggerated. The speakers of few languages like Bhojpuri, Maithili, Rajastani, Chhatisghari, and so on (and many other languages spoken in Hindi belt) are treated as Hindi speakers. And it will go like that in official records. Even though most of the speakers of the above languages can speak Hindi, their mother tongue is one of the above languages. That is, they speak one of the above language at home, and outside they speak Hindi. All this will reflect in the contribution to Hindi wikipedia. More over as Salmaan said, in North India among educated class, their is a preference on English over Hindi. For Hindi, there might be good growth from metros (for example, Delhi and Mumbai). But for that the speakers of that language should have willingness to contribute in Hindi wiki projects. I foresee growth for Bhojpuri, Maithili, Rajasthani, Chhatisghari,... wikipedias when Wikipedia's message reach the speakers of that language. Bhojpuri is already moderately active. So the browser and the operating system would be in English, most online User interface of browser or OS being in English is not a barrier to contribute to language wikipedias. For most of us (who contribute to language wikipedias) it is like that. Also not all of language are using Windows. Many language wikipedians in India prefer GNU/Linux over Windows. Apart from philosophical reason GNU/Linux has better support for Indic scripts. Most of the solutions developed for Indic scrips (whether it is for wiki or for general purpose) are developed by GNU/Linux developers. Shiju Alex On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 6:13 PM, theo10011 <de10011(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, I am not surprised at the low edit rate of Hindi. What surprises me is the high and comparable rates in other wikis :) I assume that web users just sign up in many sites with expectations like some premium features etc., The biggest barrier to increasing contribution to Wikipedia is that even long time and educated *users don't know that they can edit Wikipedia. * Ravi Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 8:49 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: