*Times of India : "Tamil wikipedia tops charts" *
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Tamil-wikipedia-tops-charts…
With more than 56,000 articles, Tamil is the 60th most popular language in
the world when it comes to Wikipedia.
On Sunday, a group of contributors to the page gathered to celebrate its
10th anniversary at Anna University. In India, it is second to Hindi in the
number of articles.
"When it comes to the average word length of articles and the number of
references for each article, Tamil is ahead," says *Mayurnathan*, the first
contributor to Tamil Wikipedia in 2003. "When I began, I was the only one
writing for the page in the first eight months," he said.
Ten years on, there are 965 contributers, of which 300 are active at any
given point. "We have around 1.75 lakh page views everyday - this is more
than several other Tamil magazine websites," said Mayurnathan.
Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia available online to which anyone can
contribute and edit existing articles.
Wiktionary, a free dictionary has more than 35 lakh entries in 1,100
languages. Of this, Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam have more than one lakh
entries each.
"Our presence is bound to get better as Tamil Virtual Academy has decided
to donate two lakh technical definitions," said *L Sundar*, another
contributor.
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
Important Note : Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes only.
The publisher ( Times of India ) of the above news article owns the
copyrights of the article / content. All copyrights are duly acknowledged.
Greetings from CIS-A2K!
We request the pleasure of your company at the event 'Re-releasing Konkani Vishwakosh & Building Konkani Wikipedia' . The event will take place on the 26th September, Thursday,10am - 11am at the Conference Hall, Goa University, Taleigao.
Upon CIS-A2K' explicit request, Goa University has approved the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License (CC‐BY‐SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public and thus preserve Konkani language and culture in the digital era. This encyclopedia will also serve as one of the main sources of building and writing articles on Konkani Wikipedia (which is currently under incubation).
This is a major win for the Wikimedia movement in India. This is, probably, the first time ever a State run higher education institution has re-released copyrighted content under Creative Commons. Hope more such initiatives will be underway to "Let the Knowledge Go around"!
We'd like you to be a part of this event and help showcase Konkani community and language on a global digital platform such as Konkani Wikipedia.
Please see the link for the invite.[1] We look forward to seeing you at the event.
Best,
Nitika Tandon
Program Manager
Access to Knowledge
The Centre for Internet & Society
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Re-release_of_Konkani_Vishwakosh_un…
Dear All,
On behalf of CIS-A2K, I am glad to share with you that GOA University has
signed an MoU with CIS-A2K.
As part of this MoU Goa University and CIS-A2K will work together to
digitize “Konkani Vishwakosh” under Creative Common license and build a
Digital Knowledge Partnership in order to enhance digital literacy in the
Konkani language and facilitate collaborative knowledge production and
disseminate the same free of cost through Kokani Wikipedia (currently under
incubation). Gos University and CIS-A2K will co-design and jointly
implement relevant training programmes to achieve this objective.
CIS-A2K is grateful for the support and encouragement received from the Goa
University Vice-Chancellor Dr. Satish Shetye; Prof. Alito Siqueira; Prof.
Priyadarshini Tadkodkar; Dr. Madhavi Sardesai; Dr. Gopakumar; and other
faculty of Goa University.
We are also equally grateful to Wikipedians Harriet Vidyasagar and
Frederick Noronha who have engaged with CIS-A2K team and been a constant
source of support.
Wish us best of luck!
Vishnu
Dear All,
CIS-A2K would like to invite you to our first monthly IRC to receive
feedback on our work. We are slowly rolling out the work-plans that we
have developed with your collaboration and input. We have received
some useful feedback from some of you on Meta specifically on two
important aspects, which informed the agenda for this IRC.
IRC details:
Channel: #Wikimedia-in
Date: September 5, 2013 (Thursday)
Time: 8-9 pm
Agenda:
What more measures can CIS-A2K take to increase community participation?
Pilot Projects - Discussion on possible topics, strategies of
execution and community involvement.
Any specific aspect of CIS-A2K's work that majority of the community
members, present for IRC, would like to discuss.
For those who are attending IRC for the first time please check this
link to join: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IRC/Tutorial
--
Best!
Subhashish Panigrahi
Programme Officer, Access To Knowledge
Centre for Internet and Society
@psubhashish