[Wikimediaindia-l] [Report] 3rd Odia Wikipedia Workshop, Cuttack, on 17 April, 2011

[Srikant Kedia]

Hi, here is the report of the 3rd Odia Wikipedia Workshop, Cuttack, 2011,
April 03.

The 3rd Odia Wikipedia Academy has been organized on 17April 2011 at Image
Institute of Technology & Management, Cuttack. This was the second outreach
academy of Odia Wikipedia in Odisha and the first one organized in the
Silver City, Cuttack in order to create an awareness about odia wikipedia
and to motivate common mass from different educational and social background
to use the same. Odia Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia with
a substantial motive of making knowledge freely available  to the masses in
Odia Language, was started way back in 2002. It was among the first four
Indian regional language wikipedia, other three being Asamese, Malayalam, &
Punjabi. But due to the dearth of proper awareness and activism there was a
snail pace movement for almost 8 years. Shiju Alex of Malyalam Wikipedia
introduced Odia Wiki projects to many fellow Odias which later motivated
them to recapitulate the Odia Wiki movement through the first Odia Wikipedia
Academy, conducted in Bengaluru on 6 March, 2011

Sambidhan Mohanty, Founder, Inmohven along with Ashutosh Kar, a Bangalore
based software engineer and an alumni of the prestigious National Institute
of Design formally inaugurated the event. A Video Tutorial which illustrates
and demonstrates the usage & the complete know-how of odia wikipedia was
launched on this occasion. A FAQ Booklet was distributed among the first
time participants of the Wikipedia Workshop. Cuttack based wikipedian
Srikant Kedia took active part in facilitating the event. The whole
Academy/Workshop was conducted in 2 main sections, in the first session Mr.
Kar & Mr. Mohanty introduced Odia Wikpedia to the audience, giving them a
brief overview about the history, development and current status of
Wikipedia Movement. The second session, conducted by Srikant Kedia, focused
on how to type in Odia using the transliteration/Inscript tool, which has
been incorporated recently in odia wikipedia; solving typing issues,
searching existing articles, creating articles and editing for improvement
of old article. He also demonstrated the technique of adding content to the
articles by using the commonly used syntaxes, the methodology for adding
pictures and other media files to odia wikipedia. This session was followed
by an interactive session in which the audience interacted with the
demonstrators and among themselves. Several discussions based on several
major issues were carried out as well. The participants included students
from the various management & engineering colleges, entrepreneurs,
journalists, writers & College students. At the end of the session
contributors came forward with several suggestions which included motivating
more number of students and freelancers to contribute to Odia
Wikipedia.There was a discussion on how to build a stronger community and
the ways to be implemented for improving the articles both in terms of a
standard quality and quantity. The participants also put forth their
suggestions on the ways to tackle vandalism and monitor the wiki user's
activities. Many such activism & events have been planned to be conducted in
the coming future with the involvement of people from all fields of life,
who are passionate about the development of Odia language on the web. Odia
Wikipedia can be accessed at or.wikipedia.org and the Facebook page for Odia
Wikipedia is facebook.com/OdiaWiki

As of now there are 714 articles in Odia Wikipedia, many of them are yet to
be refined & enhanced with more information and references through larger
participation.


-- 
Thanks & Regards,
Srikant Kedia (User:Odisha1)
Odia (Oriya) Wikipedia Community

Odia Wikipedia Support Mail ID - odiawiki at gmail.com
Facebook- facebook.com/OdiaWiki
Tweet @OdiaWiki
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