[Wikipedia-l] Analyzing and Visualizing the Semantic Coverage of Wikipedia

[Frederick "FN" Noronha]

I think it has to do with the fact that Internet access in India is
still very limited, and, in some ways, very new.

As a journalist (based in Goa), I've been on e-mail access since 1994.
But till just about 12-18 months back, I paid for every minute of
internet time. Around that time, I managed to get unlimited dial-up
access. Some six months back, I got access to broadband. And only
about two months back, got unlimited 256 kbps broadband (at an
affordable Rs 900 per month).

This may not reflect everyone's situation, since I live some ten kms
out of a town in the smallest state. But outside of the metros (the
four big cities), most people are in a similar predicament.

Also, not enough people have discovered the Wikipedia yet in India. Or
so it seems. But you can expect the tide to turn in not too long a
time. Let's hope so! FN

On 01/09/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Frederick "FN" Noronha wrote:
>
> >"It's not as bad as it was a year ago. We had almost nothing then.
> >Now, languages like Bengali, Kannada, Marathi are in the 3,000-5,000
> >article range. Hindi, Assamese over 1,000. But Hindi, a very large
> >language, has only 1,500 entries. That's a little surprising," Wales
> >told IANS.
> >
> >
> This actually doesn't surprise me too much.  Hindi is a lingua franca of
> sorts in India, but so is English.  In particular, the Hindi speakers
> most likely to be editing an encyclopedia on the internet (middle to
> upper class, well-educated) are highly likely to also speak very good
> English.  Anecdotally, there are indeed a lot of Indians making good
> contributions on the English-language Wikipedia, so it seems that many
> seem to prefer to put their efforts there, probably for a variety of
> reasons (bigger base to start from; feeling that their contribution will
> have more global impact; etc.).
>
> -Mark

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Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org  9822122436 +91-832-240-9490
http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com fredericknoronha at gmail.com