Hi,
Today, I went to download WordPress and it told me it is also available in Tamil. Very neatly done as it somehow detected that I am from Tamilnadu.
See the screenshot at: http://ravidreams.com/ta-wordpress.png
A similar announcement in English Wiki projects is sure to double or triple traffic to Indic Wiki projects.
We have been requesting this feature for years.
Curious when it will be implemented.
Ravi
I think localization is done only for Tamil as of now, for me also it's showing Tamil :) But expecting it'd be available in other Indic languages as well.
Best Subha
On 19 December 2011 17:24, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Today, I went to download WordPress and it told me it is also available in Tamil. Very neatly done as it somehow detected that I am from Tamilnadu.
See the screenshot at: http://ravidreams.com/ta-wordpress.png
A similar announcement in English Wiki projects is sure to double or triple traffic to Indic Wiki projects.
We have been requesting this feature for years.
Curious when it will be implemented.
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
A good idea no doubt, but I think the detecting which state the user comes from part is a small road block. While Google Mail has been showing which state the IP is from in the logins section, I think the browser or system language should also be taken into consideration, though it may seem obvious at first that a person who is using his or her computer in their own language would know Wikipedia exists in that language.
A small extension of my previous post. Logic, geolocation within India is very much possible. Atleast I know Google can do it. The only hitch is that it doesn't work well with Wireless connections. For instance, I frequently use a Reliance Wireless modem, which is registered in K'taka but even in Bangalore, Coimbatore, Pune, Hubli it says it's a TN based IP. Ditto for Tata Docomo.
Hi All,
Every time this idea is discussed, the technical issue of state / city level resolution and filtering of language issue comes and the discussions stalls.
*State / city level resolution is not necessary and need not be an excuse for not implementing this feature.*
If we find this feature will be worthy, let us test it and find the procedure for it.
*This is one area where the Wikimedia tech team can be BOLD and implement it without worrying about or waiting for community approval procedure.*
Ravi
A single line like "Wikipedia is also available in Bengali, Hind, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil .... at the top and to the left of "Login/create account link" will be fine. The line can be as what you see in http://www.google.co.in/ . If we feel showing too many languages is clutter, show random and limited number of links for Indic languages.
Ravi, I agree. The rotation system, if implemented works best. However do note, this is best suited for the desktop version only, not Mobiles. I'd like to point out that - People who use Opera Mini on their mobiles, get routed thru a European server while all BlackBerry users get routed thru a server in London, Hungary or Canada.
On 12/19/11, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
A single line like "Wikipedia is also available in Bengali, Hind, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil .... at the top and to the left of "Login/create account link" will be fine. The line can be as what you see in http://www.google.co.in/ . If we feel showing too many languages is clutter, show random and limited number of links for Indic languages.
I think Sundar has suggested something like this before in this list. :)
*$U®¥∩* http://goo.gl/RoMyo.com http://FirefoxSurya.blogspot.com http://about.me/suryaceg
On 19 December 2011 18:04, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.ghoda@gmail.comwrote:
Ravi, I agree. The rotation system, if implemented works best. However do note, this is best suited for the desktop version only, not Mobiles. I'd like to point out that - People who use Opera Mini on their mobiles, get routed thru a European server while all BlackBerry users get routed thru a server in London, Hungary or Canada.
On 12/19/11, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
A single line like "Wikipedia is also available in Bengali, Hind, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil .... at the top and to the left of "Login/create account link" will be fine. The line can be as what you see in http://www.google.co.in/ . If we feel showing too many languages is clutter, show random and limited number of links for Indic languages.
-- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Srikanth,
Even if only x% (or say people who wear white shirt on Monday evenings) are going to see this notice, it is still useful and not going to hurt the project in anyway.
Unless the community stands united and requests this feature, it will not happen any sooner.
So, let us not loose steam on discussing the technical hurdles up front.
ravi
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 6:04 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
Ravi, I agree. The rotation system, if implemented works best. However do note, this is best suited for the desktop version only, not Mobiles. I'd like to point out that - People who use Opera Mini on their mobiles, get routed thru a European server while all BlackBerry users get routed thru a server in London, Hungary or Canada.
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 18:12, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Srikanth,
{{Disambiguation needed}},Not just here, in many threads going forward, especially atleast 2 Srikanth's are active on the list :D
So, let us not loose steam on discussing the technical hurdles up front.
I guess Universal Language Selector is surely on the cards and will solve the problem in totality, no harm in having one liner you mentioned till then.
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 17:24, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Today, I went to download WordPress and it told me it is also available in Tamil. Very neatly done as it somehow detected that I am from Tamilnadu.
Geolocation within India is impossible. My guess is it used your browser's accepted language and did it. Extension:Translate already has a similar code like that.
See the screenshot at: http://ravidreams.com/ta-wordpress.png
A similar announcement in English Wiki projects is sure to double or triple traffic to Indic Wiki projects.
We have been requesting this feature for years. Curious when it will be implemented.
It was briefly(week or two) done in 2011 Jan (infact some nice graphic banners) post fundraising along with Thank you banners. We have 10 months (non-fundraiser ones) and we can display this banner all along, but question would it help and is it non-controversial?, who are the ones who could decide on such a high impact sitenotice based on geolocation, this list?, meta admins?, English wikipedians of India? Though there is nothing wrong with intent, keeping banners for long needs some consensus.
Subha,
If you check WordPress.com it shows all available Indic languages.
If you check WordPress.org, I think it is showing only Tamil (may be because as you said it is the only translation available and that too for Srilankan Tamil : )
But the point is: Even if you show all available Indic languages without resolving to the level of state and language, it is still good.
//non-controversial?, who are the ones who could decide on such a high impact sitenotice based on geolocation, this list?, meta admins?, English wikipedians of India? Though there is nothing wrong with intent, keeping banners for long needs some consensus.//
Sites like http://www.google.co.in/ highlight the available languages and it makes perfect sense for usability. If keeping a site notice for ever in all pages is a problem, do it only for the pages where there is an Indian language version is available and show only the links for the languages where a corresponding page exists.
Ravi
On a slightly related note http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector
-TC
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 5:24 PM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Today, I went to download WordPress and it told me it is also available in Tamil. Very neatly done as it somehow detected that I am from Tamilnadu.
See the screenshot at: http://ravidreams.com/ta-wordpress.png
A similar announcement in English Wiki projects is sure to double or triple traffic to Indic Wiki projects.
We have been requesting this feature for years.
Curious when it will be implemented.
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 5:41 PM, CherianTinu Abraham tinucherian@gmail.com wrote:
On a slightly related note http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector
Arun Ganesh was doing this at the Hackathon, and if implemented *properly* I think this should help with the discovery issue a lot.
-TC
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 5:24 PM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Today, I went to download WordPress and it told me it is also available in Tamil. Very neatly done as it somehow detected that I am from Tamilnadu.
See the screenshot at: http://ravidreams.com/ta-wordpress.png
A similar announcement in English Wiki projects is sure to double or triple traffic to Indic Wiki projects.
We have been requesting this feature for years.
Curious when it will be implemented.
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 5:24 PM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Today, I went to download WordPress and it told me it is also available in Tamil. Very neatly done as it somehow detected that I am from Tamilnadu.
See the screenshot at: http://ravidreams.com/ta-wordpress.png
A similar announcement in English Wiki projects is sure to double or triple traffic to Indic Wiki projects.
We have been requesting this feature for years.
Curious when it will be implemented.
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
I tried that. twice.
Back in 2010, we had banners pointing to Indic wikis, with messages like, there is a wiki in your language you can edit. Then it lead to landing pages with lists of indic language wikis.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/IN/Welcome
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_language_projects
This banner ran for close to 2 months in late 2010 and early 2011. I think WMF staff might have tried it again during the year.
Conclusion, it did not make a dent. Most people dismissed the banners, and never clicked, those that did, never followed to edit. It made little to no difference in the visitor or editor stats for the period.
Regards Theo
Also, we already have that in the left side of every page, the sidebar on every article lists the version of that article available in different languages.
Regards Theo
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 6:45 PM, Theo10011 de10011@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 5:24 PM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Today, I went to download WordPress and it told me it is also available in Tamil. Very neatly done as it somehow detected that I am from Tamilnadu.
See the screenshot at: http://ravidreams.com/ta-wordpress.png
A similar announcement in English Wiki projects is sure to double or triple traffic to Indic Wiki projects.
We have been requesting this feature for years.
Curious when it will be implemented.
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
I tried that. twice.
Back in 2010, we had banners pointing to Indic wikis, with messages like, there is a wiki in your language you can edit. Then it lead to landing pages with lists of indic language wikis.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/IN/Welcome
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_language_projects
This banner ran for close to 2 months in late 2010 and early 2011. I think WMF staff might have tried it again during the year.
Conclusion, it did not make a dent. Most people dismissed the banners, and never clicked, those that did, never followed to edit. It made little to no difference in the visitor or editor stats for the period.
Regards Theo
Theo, last time I checked, Indic languages are no longer listed in the side of the English Main Page. A limited number of languages is there with a link to More Languages.
On 12/19/11, Theo10011 de10011@gmail.com wrote:
Also, we already have that in the left side of every page, the sidebar on every article lists the version of that article available in different languages.
Regards Theo
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 6:45 PM, Theo10011 de10011@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 5:24 PM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Today, I went to download WordPress and it told me it is also available in Tamil. Very neatly done as it somehow detected that I am from Tamilnadu.
See the screenshot at: http://ravidreams.com/ta-wordpress.png
A similar announcement in English Wiki projects is sure to double or triple traffic to Indic Wiki projects.
We have been requesting this feature for years.
Curious when it will be implemented.
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
I tried that. twice.
Back in 2010, we had banners pointing to Indic wikis, with messages like, there is a wiki in your language you can edit. Then it lead to landing pages with lists of indic language wikis.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/IN/Welcome
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_language_projects
This banner ran for close to 2 months in late 2010 and early 2011. I think WMF staff might have tried it again during the year.
Conclusion, it did not make a dent. Most people dismissed the banners, and never clicked, those that did, never followed to edit. It made little to no difference in the visitor or editor stats for the period.
Regards Theo
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 7:24 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
Theo, last time I checked, Indic languages are no longer listed in the side of the English Main Page. A limited number of languages is there with a link to More Languages.
They are, it's just that Indic languages usually have so fewer articles with different titles that they don't get listed.
See the article for India- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India
The listed languages on the side include almost all indic languages. There are two issues why they are so few links to Indic language versions, one is there is just a huge shortage of relevant articles, comparing an encyclopedia with 3.8 million articles to most indic languages versions which are ~100k or less is going to lead to a majority of times with no relevant cross-links. The second and the lesser reason is titles themselves are in Indic languages, so if a bot doesn't tag them right they don't get picked up.
Regards Theo
Conclusion, it did not make a dent. Most people dismissed the banners, and never clicked, those that did, never followed to edit. It made little to no difference in the visitor or editor stats for the period.
Theo,
Clearly, links in sidebars are not getting enough eyeballs. It is also hard to look for one's own language when there are too many interwiki links. Unless you are intentionally looking for it, it is hard to notice.
What I am suggesting is a country specific clear navigational aid which is a best practice that all major websites follow (WordPress, Google, Facebook all show Indic language version links if I access from India.
It will be interesting to analyze why the banners did not work. If we are inviting people to contribute, only people who would like to contribute may check. The behavior may be different when we try different messages. Also, I am not looking to convert people to editors. Merely getting more readers and increasing awareness about the existence of local language versions is a great win.
Ravi
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 8:01 PM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Theo,
Clearly, links in sidebars are not getting enough eyeballs. It is also hard to look for one's own language when there are too many interwiki links. Unless you are intentionally looking for it, it is hard to notice.
The placement of the inter-wiki language links was more of a usability decision. WMF undertook the usability initiative a couple of years ago, and decided to place it there in the current skins.
What I am suggesting is a country specific clear navigational aid which is a best practice that all major websites follow (WordPress, Google, Facebook all show Indic language version links if I access from India.
And I'm saying, that is similar to what we tried. We had a banner informing only Indian editors, both logged-in and anon, that there is a version of Wikipedia in their own language.
It will be interesting to analyze why the banners did not work. If we are inviting people to contribute, only people who would like to contribute may check. The behavior may be different when we try different messages. Also, I am not looking to convert people to editors. Merely getting more readers and increasing awareness about the existence of local language versions is a great win.
At the time, my intention wasn't as much as getting editors but raising awareness of the Indic Wikis. We didn't have analytics on during the last tests, but I suppose click-through rates and other information could be utilized for an analysis.
My point was, we tried it for months, it did not make any measurable impact. The approach was very similar to what you are proposing, I believe someone even suggested that exact proposal during that time. I asked around and maybe there was some technical solution to making an en.wp sitenotice geolocated to india that would pull the same info as the language side-bar but place it on top. It doesn't seem technically hard to pull off.
Anyway, I suppose I can throw something together for a banner or test but I am not inclined towards trying it now, we just concluded the Wikiconference, and banners for India ran non-stop for over 3 months, which lead into the fundraiser banners lasting the last couple of months followed by the research study and editor trends. It is time to give central notices for India some rest, it needs some gap unless we start loosing visibility for banners in India, all together.
Regards Theo
On Dec 19, 2011, at 8:16 PM, Theo10011 wrote:
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 8:01 PM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
This is a really useful discussion and there's a powerful idea. I agree with Ravi that there is an opportunity to build awareness and traffic to Indic language sites. While we are already seeing considerable readership of Indic languages, there's clearly a lot more that can be done to support this and also to help build Indic language communities. I also hear Theo's point that it didn't work last time, or maybe wasn't adequately measured.
I'd like to suggest that - even as the technical challenges are resolved - to explore this. The first step would be finalise what the objectives are (e.g., is it basic awareness building of the existence of Indic language projects or to is it to drive readership of these projects or is it encourage more active participation in these proejcts?) The next stage would be to test different banner/notice/page design options and figure out the most appropriate solution (in the same systematic way that the WMF fundraising team tests banners and optimises the ones that work best.) If you see value and you think we need resources for this, I'm happy to see what we can do about it. (Maybe see if any of the fundraising team's people are free after the fundraiser to help with the analytics for determining what might work best?)
What say?
hisham
This is a really useful discussion and there's a powerful idea. I agree with Ravi that there is an opportunity to build awareness and traffic to Indic language sites. While we are already seeing considerable readership of Indic languages, there's clearly a lot more that can be done to support this and also to help build Indic language communities. I also hear Theo's point that it didn't work last time, or maybe wasn't adequately measured.
I'd like to suggest that - even as the technical challenges are resolved - to explore this. The first step would be finalise what the objectives are (e.g., is it basic awareness building of the existence of Indic language projects or to is it to drive readership of these projects or is it encourage more active participation in these proejcts?) The next stage would be to test different banner/notice/page design options and figure out the most appropriate solution (in the same systematic way that the WMF fundraising team tests banners and optimises the ones that work best.) If you see value and you think we need resources for this, I'm happy to see what we can do about it. (Maybe see if any of the fundraising team's people are free after the fundraiser to help with the analytics for determining what might work best?)
What say?
hisham
+1.
Instead of saying it won't work, we have to think how to make it work as the ultimate goal of increasing awareness about Indic projects should not be neglected !
Ravi
I agree with Ravi.
On 12/20/11, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
This is a really useful discussion and there's a powerful idea. I agree with Ravi that there is an opportunity to build awareness and traffic to Indic language sites. While we are already seeing considerable readership of Indic languages, there's clearly a lot more that can be done to support this and also to help build Indic language communities. I also hear Theo's point that it didn't work last time, or maybe wasn't adequately measured.
I'd like to suggest that - even as the technical challenges are resolved - to explore this. The first step would be finalise what the objectives are (e.g., is it basic awareness building of the existence of Indic language projects or to is it to drive readership of these projects or is it encourage more active participation in these proejcts?) The next stage would be to test different banner/notice/page design options and figure out the most appropriate solution (in the same systematic way that the WMF fundraising team tests banners and optimises the ones that work best.) If you see value and you think we need resources for this, I'm happy to see what we can do about it. (Maybe see if any of the fundraising team's people are free after the fundraiser to help with the analytics for determining what might work best?)
What say?
hisham
+1.
Instead of saying it won't work, we have to think how to make it work as the ultimate goal of increasing awareness about Indic projects should not be neglected !
Ravi
Most of the visitors on Wikipedia end up there through search engines. But there is another group which attempts to access Wikipedia directly by typing in www.wikipedia.com or www.wikipedia.org in the address bar of their browsers.
Currently, the landing page for www.wikipedia.org (wikipedia.com redirects to wikipedia.org) lists the ten largest Wikipedia projects. Apart from the English Wikipedia, the rest of the projects are practically useless for most of us in this country. Replacing the foreign language projects (for Indian IPs) with Indic language projects will help drive more traffic.
Yours sincerely,
Anirudh Bhati
+855 975 529 803 Skype: anirudhsbh
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with Ravi.
On 12/20/11, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
This is a really useful discussion and there's a powerful idea. I agree with Ravi that there is an opportunity to build awareness and traffic to Indic language sites. While we are already seeing considerable
readership
of Indic languages, there's clearly a lot more that can be done to
support
this and also to help build Indic language communities. I also hear Theo's point that it didn't work last time, or maybe wasn't adequately
measured.
I'd like to suggest that - even as the technical challenges are
resolved -
to explore this. The first step would be finalise what the objectives
are
(e.g., is it basic awareness building of the existence of Indic language projects or to is it to drive readership of these projects or is it encourage more active participation in these proejcts?) The next stage would be to test different banner/notice/page design options and figure out the most appropriate solution (in the same systematic way that the WMF fundraising team tests banners and optimises the ones that work best.)
If
you see value and you think we need resources for this, I'm happy to see what we can do about it. (Maybe see if any of the fundraising team's people are free after the fundraiser to help with the analytics for determining what might work best?)
What say?
hisham
+1.
Instead of saying it won't work, we have to think how to make it work as the ultimate goal of increasing awareness about Indic projects should not be neglected !
Ravi
-- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
hi,
Perhaps somebody here has already brought this up, but you can now switch languages on Commons using a drop down menu. You can spot the drop down just below the Village Pump link. There is also a helpful site notice, that suggested I read Commons in British English :).
It seems to do this change by detecting the change in the script in the url - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. Neat.
warm regards, Pradeep
On 20 December 2011 22:01, Anirudh Bhati anirudhsbh@gmail.com wrote:
Most of the visitors on Wikipedia end up there through search engines. But there is another group which attempts to access Wikipedia directly by typing in www.wikipedia.com or www.wikipedia.org in the address bar of their browsers.
Currently, the landing page for www.wikipedia.org (wikipedia.comredirects to wikipedia.org) lists the ten largest Wikipedia projects. Apart from the English Wikipedia, the rest of the projects are practically useless for most of us in this country. Replacing the foreign language projects (for Indian IPs) with Indic language projects will help drive more traffic.
Yours sincerely,
Anirudh Bhati
+855 975 529 803 Skype: anirudhsbh
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with Ravi.
On 12/20/11, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
This is a really useful discussion and there's a powerful idea. I
agree
with Ravi that there is an opportunity to build awareness and traffic
to
Indic language sites. While we are already seeing considerable
readership
of Indic languages, there's clearly a lot more that can be done to
support
this and also to help build Indic language communities. I also hear Theo's point that it didn't work last time, or maybe wasn't adequately
measured.
I'd like to suggest that - even as the technical challenges are
resolved -
to explore this. The first step would be finalise what the objectives
are
(e.g., is it basic awareness building of the existence of Indic
language
projects or to is it to drive readership of these projects or is it encourage more active participation in these proejcts?) The next stage would be to test different banner/notice/page design options and figure out the most appropriate solution (in the same systematic way that the WMF fundraising team tests banners and optimises the ones that work best.)
If
you see value and you think we need resources for this, I'm happy to
see
what we can do about it. (Maybe see if any of the fundraising team's people are free after the fundraiser to help with the analytics for determining what might work best?)
What say?
hisham
+1.
Instead of saying it won't work, we have to think how to make it work as the ultimate goal of increasing awareness about Indic projects should
not
be neglected !
Ravi
-- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Currently, the landing page for www.wikipedia.org (wikipedia.comredirects to wikipedia.org) lists the ten largest Wikipedia projects. Apart from the English Wikipedia, the rest of the projects are practically useless for most of us in this country. Replacing the foreign language projects (for Indian IPs) with Indic language projects will help drive more traffic.
I think this is a very good suggestion. I remember seeing many of friends using wikipedia.org to reach English wikipedia. Replacing the current non-english wikipedias with Indic wikipedias (for Indian IPs) can also be one of the solution. It will definitely catch the attention of a few percentage of Indian readers.
Shiju
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 10:01 PM, Anirudh Bhati anirudhsbh@gmail.comwrote:
Most of the visitors on Wikipedia end up there through search engines. But there is another group which attempts to access Wikipedia directly by typing in www.wikipedia.com or www.wikipedia.org in the address bar of their browsers.
Currently, the landing page for www.wikipedia.org (wikipedia.comredirects to wikipedia.org) lists the ten largest Wikipedia projects. Apart from the English Wikipedia, the rest of the projects are practically useless for most of us in this country. Replacing the foreign language projects (for Indian IPs) with Indic language projects will help drive more traffic.
Yours sincerely,
Anirudh Bhati
+855 975 529 803 Skype: anirudhsbh
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with Ravi.
On 12/20/11, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
This is a really useful discussion and there's a powerful idea. I
agree
with Ravi that there is an opportunity to build awareness and traffic
to
Indic language sites. While we are already seeing considerable
readership
of Indic languages, there's clearly a lot more that can be done to
support
this and also to help build Indic language communities. I also hear Theo's point that it didn't work last time, or maybe wasn't adequately
measured.
I'd like to suggest that - even as the technical challenges are
resolved -
to explore this. The first step would be finalise what the objectives
are
(e.g., is it basic awareness building of the existence of Indic
language
projects or to is it to drive readership of these projects or is it encourage more active participation in these proejcts?) The next stage would be to test different banner/notice/page design options and figure out the most appropriate solution (in the same systematic way that the WMF fundraising team tests banners and optimises the ones that work best.)
If
you see value and you think we need resources for this, I'm happy to
see
what we can do about it. (Maybe see if any of the fundraising team's people are free after the fundraiser to help with the analytics for determining what might work best?)
What say?
hisham
+1.
Instead of saying it won't work, we have to think how to make it work as the ultimate goal of increasing awareness about Indic projects should
not
be neglected !
Ravi
-- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
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Rather than replacing, I suggest reorganising the order. Indic ones on top and others below. Who knows, an Indian may try and access European or African languages too.
On 12/20/11, Shiju Alex shijualexonline@gmail.com wrote:
Currently, the landing page for www.wikipedia.org (wikipedia.comredirects to wikipedia.org) lists the ten largest Wikipedia projects. Apart from the English Wikipedia, the rest of the projects are practically useless for most of us in this country. Replacing the foreign language projects (for Indian IPs) with Indic language projects will help drive more traffic.
I think this is a very good suggestion. I remember seeing many of friends using wikipedia.org to reach English wikipedia. Replacing the current non-english wikipedias with Indic wikipedias (for Indian IPs) can also be one of the solution. It will definitely catch the attention of a few percentage of Indian readers.
Shiju
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 10:01 PM, Anirudh Bhati anirudhsbh@gmail.comwrote:
Most of the visitors on Wikipedia end up there through search engines. But there is another group which attempts to access Wikipedia directly by typing in www.wikipedia.com or www.wikipedia.org in the address bar of their browsers.
Currently, the landing page for www.wikipedia.org (wikipedia.comredirects to wikipedia.org) lists the ten largest Wikipedia projects. Apart from the English Wikipedia, the rest of the projects are practically useless for most of us in this country. Replacing the foreign language projects (for Indian IPs) with Indic language projects will help drive more traffic.
Yours sincerely,
Anirudh Bhati
+855 975 529 803 Skype: anirudhsbh
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with Ravi.
On 12/20/11, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
This is a really useful discussion and there's a powerful idea. I
agree
with Ravi that there is an opportunity to build awareness and traffic
to
Indic language sites. While we are already seeing considerable
readership
of Indic languages, there's clearly a lot more that can be done to
support
this and also to help build Indic language communities. I also hear Theo's point that it didn't work last time, or maybe wasn't adequately
measured.
I'd like to suggest that - even as the technical challenges are
resolved -
to explore this. The first step would be finalise what the objectives
are
(e.g., is it basic awareness building of the existence of Indic
language
projects or to is it to drive readership of these projects or is it encourage more active participation in these proejcts?) The next stage would be to test different banner/notice/page design options and figure out the most appropriate solution (in the same systematic way that the WMF fundraising team tests banners and optimises the ones that work best.)
If
you see value and you think we need resources for this, I'm happy to
see
what we can do about it. (Maybe see if any of the fundraising team's people are free after the fundraiser to help with the analytics for determining what might work best?)
What say?
hisham
+1.
Instead of saying it won't work, we have to think how to make it work as the ultimate goal of increasing awareness about Indic projects should
not
be neglected !
Ravi
-- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
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Anirudh,
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 10:01 PM, Anirudh Bhati anirudhsbh@gmail.comwrote:
Most of the visitors on Wikipedia end up there through search engines. But there is another group which attempts to access Wikipedia directly by typing in www.wikipedia.com or www.wikipedia.org in the address bar of their browsers.
Currently, the landing page for www.wikipedia.org (wikipedia.comredirects to wikipedia.org) lists the ten largest Wikipedia projects. Apart from the English Wikipedia, the rest of the projects are practically useless for most of us in this country. Replacing the foreign language projects (for Indian IPs) with Indic language projects will help drive more traffic.
+1. Great idea.
Pradeep,
//Perhaps somebody here has already brought this up, but you can now switch languages on Commons using a drop down menu. You can spot the drop down just below the Village Pump link. There is also a helpful site notice, that suggested I read Commons in British English :)..//
This is also neatly done. I chose Tamil interface and closed the window. After a while I came back to see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_Takes_Kolkatadirectly. It remembered my earlier preference and gave me a notice that I can also see in Tamil.
While we are looking for a similar notice based on IP / availability of Indic interwiki links, giving interface language options for en wiki is not much useful. As Sumana rightly pointed out, we need to alert the users about the existence of local language Wiki. Most of the major Indic Wiki projects are online for more than 7 years now. But, 90%+ users who browse en wiki do not know that they exist :( If they knew about them and chose to read in English, that is altogether a different issue and can't be solved technically.
Ravi
wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org