Centre for Internet and Society

Tulu Wikipedia (Coverage in VijayaVani)

praskrishna — 2014-12-27T16:30:57Z

Media coverage in Vijayavani.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/tulu-wikipedia-coverage-in-vijayavani

Tulu Wikipedia - Coverage in Vijaya Karnataka

praskrishna — 2014-12-27T16:36:09Z

This is the coverage in Vijaya Karnataka on December 15.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/tulu-wikipedia-december-15-2014-coverage-in-vijaya-karnataka

Wikipedia can establish Tulu in a wider way

praskrishna — 2014-10-24T16:01:07Z

In his predential address after inaugurating the three-day workshop on ‘The use of internet for promotion of Tulu language,’ organised by Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy, Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy President Janki M Brahmavar opined that internet media, especially Wikipedia, can contribute to a large extent towards the promotion of Tulu language. The president said there was a need for the effective use of Unicode for the digital interpretation of Tulu.

This was published in Mangalore Today on October 17, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave his inputs.

Delivering a talk on the occasion, Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore) Indian Languages Programme Coordinator and Wikipedia representative Dr U B Pavanaja said that Tulu Wikipedia is in the process of getting life. He said that minimal work has taken place in Tulu language and that too, is not up to the mark, to be considered for the inclusion of the language to the 8th schedule. There is a need for Unicode, which would enable the language to acquire wide recognition, though it positively qualifies as a classical language of ancient times.

There should at least be 500-600 articles in Wikipedia to consider it as live. At least 8-10 articles should be uploaded every month. He added that only eight people had updated their Tulu articles into Wikipedia, during previous year, when the workshop was held at Mangalore. At present the number has gone up to 320. Until March, the number of articles uploaded was 137. The government should work towards it. Dr Pavanaja added that Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, and is in 287 languages across the world. Anyone who is interested can update his or her articles into the encyclopedia. There are nearly 6000 languages across the world. The people who avail the internet facilities at home can also work on some articles and upload their write ups into Wikipedia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/mangalore-today-october-17-2014-wikipedia-can-establish-tulu-in-a-wider-way

Exercise to Correct articles in Tulu Wikipedia begins

praskrishna — 2016-05-01T10:37:12Z

It will go on till Saturday at the Ramakrishna pre-university college.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/exercise-to-correct-articles-in-tulu-wikipedia-begins

Tulu Wiki may go live soon as writers work day and night

praskrishna — 2016-05-03T02:17:10Z

An article about Tulu Wikipedia progress was published in the Times of India, Mangaluru edition on April 30, 2016.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/tulu-wiki-may-go-live-soon-as-writers-work-day-and-night

Tulu Wikipedia Editathon to Improve Quality of Articles in Tulu Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2016-05-07T15:43:42Z

The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) organized a Wikipedia editathon for improving Tulu Wikipedia. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the sessions.

Dr. Kishore Kumar Rai, Principal of Shri Ramakrishna PU College, who himself is an active Tulu and Kannada Wikipedian provided the lab for this activity. Any Wikipedian (Tulu/Kannada) can walk-in and make use of the lab to edit Wikipedia. He has also procured more than 100 Tulu books from Tulu Sahitya Academy which will be kept there for reference.

Agenda

Improve the quality of articles in Tulu Wikipedia
Increase the length of short articles
Add inter-wiki links
Add references
Add images
Add categories
Improve language

The event will continue in June. More details can be accessed here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/tulu-wikipedia-editathon-to-improve-quality-of-articles-in-tulu-wikipedia

Tulu Wikipedia Tutorial

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T07:50:52Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja trained the people involved in the creation of the videos.

Tutorial video on starting with Tulu Wikipedia which is in incubation:

Tutorial video explaining how to start with Tulu Wikipedia which is in incubator:

Tutorial video explaining how to add new article to Tulu Wikipedia:

Tutorial video explaining how to type in Tulu Wikipedia:

Tutorial video explaining how to format articles in Tulu Wikipedia:

The people behind these videos:

Prof. Vishwanatha Badikana for Script
Lasya Shetty for Voice
Abhishek Shetty, Saarang Community radio at St Aloysius College Mangaluru for Audio Recording
Soundarya Shetty for Mixing and Editing
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja for Conception, Direction, Mixing and Editing

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/tulu-wikipedia-tutorial

Christ University Wikipedia Education Program Internship

manasarao — 2017-12-14T08:55:05Z

The Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge program, in partnership with Christ University, is announcing its annual internship program for the 1200 students enrolled in the Wikipedia Education Program. The Wikipedia Education Program at Christ University, now in its fourth year, is an effort to bring together educators and students to use Wikipedia as an educational implement. CIS-A2K conducts the internship activity for passionate Christ University students to improve the quality of the articles created or edited by their fellow WEP peers. The internship will largely involve improving upon the articles created by their peers as well as gathering community consensus based on which these articles would be moved to the main namespace.

The students will be working on Wikipedia over the course of 21 days in developing upon the content created by Christ University Wikipedia Education Program participants. The fledgling articles currently housed in the individual “sandboxes” of the WEP participants will be improved upon by the interns through addition of detailed content, images and info-boxes.

The students are selected based on three main criteria: fluency of language(written and spoken), knowledge of Wikipedia and its processes, and their personal interest levels. The applications are open from 13 to 17 December, 2017. Interested students can apply here:

https://goo.gl/forms/Ffxh3T3DRZz8Q25F3

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/christ-university-wikipedia-education-program-internship-1

Tulu Wikipedia Conference in Mangaluru

praskrishna — 2016-09-22T23:50:18Z

A Tulu Wikipedia conference organized by the Times of Kudla (Tulu name for Mangaluru) newspaper was held at Malki, near Mangaluru on August 13 and 14, 2016. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a presentation on Tulu Wikipedia.

Prominent Tulu Wikipedians Dr. Vishwanatha Badikana and Dr. Kishore Kumar Rai also talked about their experiences of making Tulu Wikipedia live.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/tulu-wikipedia-conference-in-mangaluru

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop cum Editathon at Udupi

pavanaja — 2014-10-31T14:54:07Z

A three-day programme was held at Udupi from October 15 to 17, 2014 with an aim to increase the presence of Tulu in the online world. The first day comprised the inauguration programme and a workshop to understand the Wiki markup. The next two days were devoted to the edit-a-thon where participants added articles to Tulu Wikipedia.

The team comprised 18 girls from the Government PU College, Udupi and some other women. The event was organised by Tulu Sahitya Academy and sponsored by MGM College, Udupi and the Regional Research Centre, Udupi. Janaki Brahmavar, Chairperson of Tulu Sahitya Academy, presided over the function. She spoke about the efforts being made to add Tulu in Unicode. Jayakar Shetty, President Tulu Okkoota, expressed his happiness over the fact that it was a batch of about 20 girls who participated in the workshop cum edit-a-thon. There is a grouse that male editors far outnumber females in editing Wikipedia. This could be one instance where only female editors actively added articles to Tulu Wikipedia over three days. The programme was well covered by the print and television media. The good news is that the girls who participated in the edit-a-thon have continued adding articles. As on October 26, 2014, the total number of articles in Tulu Wikipedia has gone up to 574.

Tulu is one of the Dravidian languages spoken primarily by people from the south coast of Karnataka and north coast of Kerala[1]. As per the Census of 2001, there were 1,722,768 Tulu speakers [2]; figures of 2011 census are still not available. There are a lot of Tulu-speaking people residing outside Karnataka and Kerala in Mumbai, Goa and Gulf countries. It is estimated that the total number of Tulu-speaking people is more than 2.5 million. There has been a long-standing demand to include Tulu in the 8^th Schedule of the Constitution of India[3], [4]. Tulu had its own script long ago, it is not in use. Currently, Tulu is written in the Kannada script. Tulu has a vast vocal tradition, and there is a huge collection of knowledge that is transferred across generations orally. Efforts are being made to document this vocal tradition. The history of Tulu literature has already been documented in Kannada. Recently, the Karnataka government introduced Tulu as an optional language for schools in Mangalore and Udupi districts. However, these students don't have many books to read apart from the prescribed textbooks. There are some Tulu books in the creative writing domain, but there is hardly any book of an encyclopaedic nature in Tulu language which the students can refer to. This is where Tulu Wikipedia becomes extremely significant.

Tulu Wikipedia has been in incubation since 2007[5]. Some editing activities in Tulu Wikipedia were carried out during 2007-08. But the initial momentum gradually subsided, and most editors stopped editing. Tulu Wikipedia thereafter went into a dormant status. During the Alvas Vishwa Nudisiri Programme at Moodabidre in December 2013, Dr BA VivekaRai, former vice-chancellor of Kannada University, who was the President of the cultural and literary meet, dwelt at length on the importance of implementing Tulu language in technology. This was followed by a talk by Dr UB Pavanaja, a member of the CIS-A2K team. He continued from where Viveka Rai left off, and talked about bringing world knowledge in Tulu, rejuvenating Tulu Wikipedia, and pressuring the state and Union governments towards including Tulu in the 8^th Schedule of the Constitution.

Subsequently, a workshop on editing Tulu Wikipedia was held at Mangalore on January 19 this year under the leadership and initiative of Dr BA VivekaRai. This was followed by another edit-a-thon at Mangalore on April 5 and another workshop at Udupi on May 25. All these efforts have given a new impetus to Tulu Wikipedia. The number of articles in Tulu Wikipedia was 147 as in March 2014, which went up to 365 in July. The Tulu Sahitya Academy realised the importance and pitched into the effort of making it live.

[1] http://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/dravidian

[2] http://www.censusindia.gov.in/%28S%28i4hlwuf0ltgmdnejdawhdr45%29%29/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/partb.aspx

[3] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/requests-to-include-38-languages-in-constitution-pending-govt/article58221.ece

[4] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mangalore/Include-Tulu-in-8th-Schedule-demands-forum/articleshow/38992142.cms

[5] http://tools.wmflabs.org/meta/catanalysis/?title=Wp%2Ftcy&cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki#overview_edits

Media Coverage

http://www.mangaloretoday.com/newsbriefs/Wikipedia-can-establish-Tulu-in-a-wider-way.html

http://v4news.com/enliven-the-tulu-viki-fidia-first-and-then-add-tulu-to-the-8th-schedule-dr-ug-pavanaja-bangalore-rep-in-udupi/

http://www.mangaloretoday.com/newsbriefs/2-Day-Workshop-on-Tulu-in-internet.html

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/tulu-wikipedia-workshop-cum-editathon-at-udupi

Tulu Wikipedia Presentation: Coverage in Kannada Prabha

praskrishna — 2014-12-27T14:46:59Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja made a presentation on Tulu Wikipedia at a workshop held in Mangalore on December 14, 2014. This was covered by Kannada Prabha.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/kannada-prabha-december-14-2014-tulu-wikipedia-presentation

Tulu Wikipedia Goes 'Live'

praskrishna — 2016-08-07T01:41:56Z

Tulu Wikipedia became live on August 5, 2016. CIS-A2K took making of Tulu Wikipedia live as one of its activity in 2014. The efforts bore fruit and Tulu Wikipedia is live now.

CIS-A2K team is thankful to all the volunteers who contributed to Tulu Wikipedia and helping it see the light of the day. We would specifically thank Dr. Vishwanatha Badikana and Bharathesha Alasandemajalu who have contributed with the most edit counts and at present are participating in the WIkiconference India.

Tulu Wikipedia page here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/tulu-wikipedia-goes-live

India's 23rd regional Wikipedia, in Tulu, goes live

praskrishna — 2016-08-07T10:31:21Z

The Tulu Wikipedia has just gone live, giving another boost to yet another ancient Indian language otherwise struggling to keep up with the times and speedily changing technology.

Originally published by IANS, it was mirrored by Business Standard on August 6, 2016.

The news was announced by two key community organisers on Saturday who helped to make an eight-year-dream come true. Dr Vishwanatha Badikana, a PhD in Kannada literature in Mangalore (Karnataka) and Bharathesha, a mechanical engineer based in Muscat, announced this while attending Wikiconference India 2016, India's second national Wikipedia meet in half a decade being held here this weekend.

Tulu is a language spoken by around two million native speakers mainly in southwest Karnataka and in Kasaragod district, Kerala. It belongs to the Dravidian family of languages. Some scholars suggest Tulu is among the earliest Dravidian languages with its roots going back some 2000 years.

Wikipedia itself is available in 22 Indian languages, with Tulu becoming the 23rd. There are another one-and-half dozen Indian language Wikipedias in the incubator stage at present. Not all languages have an active wiki community.

Located at tcy.wikipdia.org, the Tulu Wikipedia has been in "incubation" since 2008. This term is used to describe such online collaborately-crafted encyclopedias which are still waiting to to go "live" or active and come online.

Around 2014, it was reactivated. Following some meetings and workshops, the concept was also showcased that year at a "World Tulu Conference" stall in December of that year.

After much work, some 1,100 articles (or 1,050 if one could ignore those which are not redirects) went live. There are currently about 100 editors who have made over 10 edits each.

"Dr Vishwanatha and Bharathesha are the number one and number two contributors," said Dr UB Panavaja, a former scientist and techie and long-term supporter of Kannada computing. Pavanaja currently looks after the CMR (Creating Movement Resources) of the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society which works with some language groups to promote their Wikipedia presence.

"After we became live, we will import articles from the 'incubator' site, build the 'village pump', set up policies, administration structure, info boxes and templates," said Pavanaja, describing the tools that any new Wikipedia needs to set up.

Scholars like the nineteenth missionary-linguist Bishop Robert Caldwell have called this language "peculiar and very interesting". According to him, "Tulu is one of the most highly developed languages of the Dravidian family. It looks as if it had been cultivated for its own sake."

The language has a lot of written literature and a rich oral literature such as the Epic of Siri, according to the Wikipedia itself.

In coastal Karnataka, both the Mangalore and Udupi areas today allow the language as an optional third-language in local schools.

This role in schooling makes it all the more mandatory to create encyclopaedic texts in the language, say its Wikipedia promoters. Mangalore University also has a Tulu language chair while St Aloysius's Radio Sarang community radio station broadcasts daily in this tiny language and the local All India Radio also broadcasts in the language.

Some five Kannada language representatives and one from Tulu are presently in Mohali-Chandigarh attending Wikiconference India 2016.

Indian Wikipedias include Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Newari, Odia, Pali, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, besides, now, Tulu.

(Frederick Noronha can be contacted at fredericknoronha1@gmail.com)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/business-standard-august-6-2016-india-23-regional-wikipedia-in-tulu-goes-live

After eight years, Tulu Wikipedia goes live

praskrishna — 2016-08-07T10:34:21Z

Around eight years after its launch and in incubation, the Tulu Wikipedia has gone live with over 1,000 articles. It can be accessed at http://tcy.wikipedia.org

The article by Raviprasad Kamila was published in the Hindu on August 7, 2016

Katherine Maher, executive director, Wikimedia Foundation, USA, made the announcement at the three-day Wikiconference India 2016, which began at Chandigarh on Friday.

U.B. Pavanaja, program manager, Indian Languages, The Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, one of the mentors of the Tulu Wikipedia told The Hindu that the page has about 1,100 articles.

“There are about 200 registered users (editors), out of which around 100 have more than 10 edits. On an average, there are about 8 to 10 active editors,” he said, adding that Vishwanatha Badikana, a Kannada professor, followed by Bharatesha Alasandemajalu, an engineer, are the highest contributors.

Mr. Pavanaja said that a series of workshops and editathons in Mangaluru and Udupi helped its growth. “A live Tulu Wikipedia will help bring pressure on the government to include Tulu in the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution,” he said. If the page is to be active, between five and 10 articles would have to be uploaded and at least 15 editors will have to edit it on a monthly basis, he added.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/hindu-raviprasad-kamila-august-7-2016-after-eight-years-tulu-wikipedia-goes-live