[Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipedia Embassy

[Samuel Klein]

You might also want to encourage people who speak each of those
languages and one of the top ten wikipedia languages to list
themselves on [[meta:Embassy]] as potential liaisons across the
projects, for help with translating messages &c.

SJ


On 6/25/10, Ganesh Krishnamurthy <ganeshkmurthy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Shiju,
>
> Good topic, agree on the need for a Embassy page on each wiki. I think it
> will be a good idea to setup a page on meta  that showcases the best
> practices in various Indian language wikipedias. This will be useful for
> smaller wikipedias that have limited resources. It can also serve as central
> place for discussion. WP:COUNCIL does similar job on English Wikipedia to
> help out inter-wikiproject communication.
>
> Regards,
> Ganesh
>
>
>
> On Jun 25, 2010, at 12:30 PM, Shiju Alex <shijualexonline at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> One of the important feature that separates Indian WikiMedia community
>> from the WikiMedia communities of other countries is its diversity of
>> languages. There are at least 20 Indian languages in which WikiMedia
>> projects are available
>>
>> Following are those languages.
>> Assamese (http://as.wikipedia.org)
>> Bengali (http://bn.wikipedia.org)
>> Bhojpuri (http://bh.wikipedia.org)
>> Bishnupriya Manipuri (http://bpy.wikipedia.org)
>> Gujarathi (http://gu.wikipedia.org)
>> Hindi (http://hi.wikipedia.org)
>> Kannada (http://kn.wikipedia.org)
>> Kashmiri (http://ks.wikipedia.org)
>> Malayalam (http://ml.wikipedia.org)
>> Marathi (http://mr.wikipedia.org)
>> Nepali (http://ne.wikipedia.org)
>> Nepal Bhasha/Newari (http://new.wikipedia.org)
>> Odia (Oriya) (http://or.wikipedia.org)
>> Pali (http://pi.wikipedia.org)
>> Punjabi (http://pa.wikipedia.org)
>> Sanskrit (http://sa.wikipedia.org)
>> Sindhi (http://sd.wikipedia.org)
>> Tamil (http://ta.wikipedia.org)
>> Telugu (http://te.wikipedia.org)
>>  Urdu (http://ur.wikipedia.org)
>>
>> (NOTE: Urdu, Nepali, Tamil, and some other languages are official
>> languages in more than one country.)
>>
>> All these languages use non-latin scripts and all of them belong either to
>> Aryan or Dravidian language family.  So there are many community related
>> (for example, advocacy) and computing related issues (for example, script
>> rendering, usability)  that are common to many of these languages. Hence
>> when it comes to computing and community related issues there are many
>> solutions that can be shared between different language communities.
>>
>> But currently, there is no communication happening between different
>> Indian language wiki communities. Because of this, many wiki communities
>> are unaware about the wiki activities that is happening outside their
>> wiki.
>>
>> Big Indian Language Wikipedias like Tamil, Bengali, Tamil and so on have
>> overcome many of the issues since they have large user base. But that is
>> not the case with small Wikipedias like Odiya, Assamese, or some other
>> smaller wikipedias. The number of active users of these wikipedias is very
>> less (In some case it is null). Even though it is the duty of the
>> respective language community to build its wiki community, it may not
>> happen overnight due to number of reasons. Hence big Indian language wiki
>> communities can help them to develop a community. For these, we need to
>> have frequent interactions between different wiki communities. But we
>> don't have a common forum in each wiki that can be used for these type of
>> discussions.
>>
>> Hence I request all Indian language Wikipedias to start an Embassy page in
>> their respective Wiki. This Embassy page can be used for the inter Wiki
>> related discussions. Tamil and Malayalam Wikipedia have started Embassy
>> long back and we have some healthy discussions happening among us both
>> inside and outside wiki.
>>
>> Tamil Wikipedia Embassy here:
>> http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%80%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE:%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%AE%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%B4%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%8D_%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%82%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D_%28Tamil_Embassy%29
>> Malayalam Wikipedia Embassy here:
>> http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_embassy
>>
>> Some other languages like Hindi, Marathi, Telugu also have Embassy.
>>
>> I request all  Indian Language Wiki communities to create such a page in
>> their wiki that can be used as forum for the type of discussions that I
>> mentioned above. Some of the best practices that can be followed while
>> creatinng such a page is:
>>
>> Appoint some ambassadors in each wiki who are interested in Indian
>> language inter wiki activities. For Malayalam, we have selected a group of
>> people selected for these.
>> Communicate only in English on this page so that different language
>> Wikipedians can participate in the discussions.
>> Place a link to the Embassy page on the side bar (Make sure this link is
>> NOT localized and it is displayed as Embassy itself). Please see Tamil and
>> Malayalam Wikipedia for example.
>> May be in future, we can think about having a Indian wiki conference for
>> the Wikimedians of different Indian languages. That time special emphasis
>> need to be given to the small wikipedias.
>>
>>
>> Regards
>> Shiju
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>> Wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>


-- 
Samuel Klein          identi.ca:sj           w:user:sj