Indic Wikisource Speak: J. Balaji
J. Balaji (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
To perfectly proofread the content with matching styles it takes a lot of effort. Patience is the key. The formatting methods are in wikisource are different from Wikipedia. So wikipedians are finding it difficult to edit in wikisource without an introduction.The young generation are accessing the internet through Mobile. They don’t use laptops and computers much. Though mobile is good medium for creating multimedia content, they are poor in creating text. It is difficult to proofread wikisource using a mobile phone. The challenge is bringing the next generation proofreaders - Wiki-librarian J. Balaji share his experience.
I joined in Wikipedia in 2009 though was using the Wikipedia from 2006. I remember how costly the books (encyclopaedias) back then. Even in libraries the encyclopaedias can only be read there itself. They don’t allow encyclopaedias for lending. Accessing knowing was costly and hassle. Suddenly I found Wikipedia which was free for anyone. Anyone can contribute too. I was fascinated by this idea. Wanted to make sure people in the future shouldn’t face problem like I did with costly encyclopaedias. From then I am a regular contributor to Wiki projects. I mostly edit in Tamil Wikisource, Wiktionary, Wikipedia, Wikidata and commons. Also sometimes in English Wikipedia and other projects out of interest
CIS:How is the awareness about Wikisource in your language Wikimedia community?
A: The awareness about wikisource in Tamil community is less compared to Tamil Wikipedia. We are trying to place many links from Wikipedia to wikisource. For example if there is an article about famous book we place a template which tells that the complete book is available in wikisource for reading. If there is an author page in Wikipedia whose work is available in wikisource we place a template which tells that the author’s works are available in wikisource. We have twitter and facebook account to increase awareness. In the future some training sessions are also planned to increase awareness and create interest
CIS:We see there’s a growth in Indic Wikisource movement (showing Amir’s stats), what kind of help does the community need to grow?
CIS: What are the challenges do you face while contributing to the project? Or social challenges while reaching out to authors or publishers.
A: To perfectly proofread the content with matching styles it takes a lot of effort. Patience is the key. The formatting methods are in wikisource are different from Wikipedia. So wikipedians are finding it difficult to edit in wikisource without an introduction. The young generation are accessing the internet through Mobile. They don’t use laptops and computers much. Though mobile is good medium for creating multimedia content, they are poor in creating text. It is difficult to proofread wikisource using a mobile phone. The challenge is bringing the next generation proofreaders.
Another major challenge is on the copyright side. The copyright status of the authors who have already passed away can be known only if the date of death is known from an authentic source. Many a times this information is missing. Hence there is difficult to judge if an author’s work is in public domain or not.
CIS: How would you describe the future of Wikisource? What are your personal goals for it?
A: The future of wikisource is optimistic. The support and interest is growing day by day. For example, the site views of Tamil wikisource was about 4000 views per day two years ago. It has now increased to 13,000 views in April 2019. The absolute page views of wikisource is very less compared to Wikipedia. Nevertheless it is an important project in the era of fake news and fake information. By documenting the source of printed information it increases the quality of references in Wikipedia. For example if a particular information in an article in Wikipedia quotes a book and the book is available in wikisource then it’s easy to cross verify the facts easily by anyone.
CIS: Please share one remarkable work which is available at your domain and you had contributed.
A: I don’t want to beat my own trumpet by claiming my work as remarkable. One of the books proofread by me was close to my heart is சோழர் வரலாறு. The book is about history of Chola kings and kingdoms (A major kingdom with its capital in south of India) , documenting history from 300 B.C to 1200 A.D. I did proofreading and transcription for this books. Other few users too contributed for proofreading and validating the pages.
Author
Jayanta Nath
Jayanta is a Wikisource Project Advisor associated with the Access to Knowledge team at the CIS, and his work focuses on supporting Indic Wikisource Communities and community members to plan and conduct Wikisource-events.
