Centre for Internet and Society

She Leads Bootcamp 2025

Soni Wadhwa — 2025-02-19T14:30:11Z

CIS-A2K is committed to bridging the gender gap within Indian Wikimedia communities, and to further this goal, last year we launched the impactful She Leads program. This initiative is designed to empower female Wikimedians to take on leadership roles within their language communities, promoting diversity and inclusivity.

She Leads offers vital support and resources, helping women bring their ideas and initiatives to life, while fostering an inclusive, supportive environment that encourages growth and collaboration.

The response and feedback from the first iteration of She Leads illustrated a larger need to nurture female leadership in the open knowledge movement. Subsequently, we had several conversations with remarkable women in the open knowledge space to explore avenues to foster female leadership. We are grateful to Rosie Stephenson Goodknight, Masana Mulaudzi, Netha Hussain, Sneha PP, Amrita Sengupta, Manavpreet Kaur, and Medhavi Gandhi for their support and guidance in conceptualizing She Leads Bootcamp 2025. A special shout out to Satdeep Gill for being an ally and contributing to the program design.

The She Leads Bootcamp 2025, which was held in Bangalore from January 31st to February 3rd, 2025, aimed to further these efforts by gathering budding women leaders from Indic Wikimedia communities. This immersive, in-person event provided participants with the tools, resources, and connections necessary to thrive as leaders. The She Leads Bootcamp 2025 helped create a robust network of women leaders who were able to collaborate and support each other’s initiatives. The training sessions focused on leadership skills, feminist methodologies, project management, and advocacy strategies. Organizers fostered a sense of belonging among participants, encouraging them to share experiences and learn from one another.

Click to download the event report authored by Soni Wadhwa and edited by Chris and Nitesh Gill.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/she-leads-bootcamp

Sau Dhuni Teen Project: December Edit-a-thon

garule — 2015-12-08T10:30:09Z

As part of the "Sau Dhuni Teen Project" a multilingual Wikipedia Wikipedia edit-a-thon was organised at the Women's Studies Centre, University of Pune.

Concept note:
The digital domain is becoming increasingly significant as a knowledge repository today. Especially relevant in this context is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which contains information on almost every topic under the sun and is used extensively by researchers. The fact that information from the Wikipedia is even used as a starting point of academic writing necessitates thinking about how this information is organized, or in other words, how we conceptualize Wikipedia as a knowledge resource. In the multilingual Indian context, generation of content in the Indian languages is a logical next step. It is with the intention of strengthening this knowledge network in the social sciences, that Women's Studies Centre, Pune University conducts content generation workshops with university researchers. The broad mandate of the digital resource generation workshop is to introduce university students to tools of collaborative knowledge production on the internet and methods for generating new online content in Indian languages under Sau Dhuni Teen Project. Also introductory session on Wiktionary.

Project aim:

Facilitate researchers to think critically about concepts and their associations
Involve researchers as active editors on the Indian language Wikipedias
Utilize Wikipedia as a platform to generate Indian language annotations of academic texts in Women's Studies and the Social Sciences

The organisers are also planning to engage the students in annotating one key women's studies text each through follow-up workshops and credit them as contributors to the "Annotated Bibliography project"

Project outcome:

9 female participants joined for this edit-a-thon and edited various articles on Marathi Wikipedia. The Marathi Wikimedia community being quite particular about the citations from Marathi-language source was somehow challenging as the participants struggled at times to find much information about many things notable. A simple step by step tutorial was created, printed and shared among the participants. Some of the participants showed interest in participating in the Train-a-Wikipedian programme that CIS-A2K is planning. Sheena D'Lima engaged with the participants by sharing her learning from Manual of Style for writing Wikipedia article.

More information about the event on Meta.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/sau-dhuni-teen-project-december-edit-a-thon

Sambad 100 Women Edit-a-thon

Ting Yi Chang and Sailesh Patnaik — 2017-04-18T10:05:52Z

A two-day 100 Women Edit-a-thon was held on March 18 and 19, 2017 in collaboration with Odisha’s biggest newspaper publisher Sambad. The event was inspired by BBC’s 100 Women series and edit-a-thons with the same name in December 2016. More than 20 female journalists participated and registered as new Odia Wikipedians. The event served as a highlight of the Women’s History Month in Indian language Wikipedias as well as in the global movement.

The name 100 Women was coined for BBC’s annual series featuring inspirational women from around the globe. In December 2016, in coordination with the broadcast of the program, an edit-a-thon of the same name was conducted at the headquarters of BBC, including at its Delhi office in India. The edit-a-thons aimed to create and edit biography articles of notable women on Wikipedia(s) to address the under-representation of women online and on Wikipedia - what we call the “Wikipedia gender gap.”

In March, Sambad became the first major news publisher after BBC to pick up the initiative and the first to hold a 100 Women edit-a-thon for Odia Wikipedia, commemorating International Women’s History Month. Sambad, an Odia daily, is among the most widely circulated papers in the state of Odisha. Ms. Tanaya Patnaik, Director of Eastern Media (Sambad’s parent company) had enthusiastically agreed to the collaboration in December 2016:

"This is the first 100 Women Editathon in India in collaboration with a media house. We are really proud to host it. A few days ago, I attended a fellowship event on ending gender violence against women, where I spoke about this editathon, and people were excited to know about this event and how we are taking such initiatives to make information about women accessible on the Internet. We will organise such events regularly and will follow up with the journalists to achieve the target of writing 100 articles about Odia Women."

The edit-a-thon was held at the Sambad headquarters in Bhubaneswar with over 20 female journalists attending the event. The event commenced on March 18, Saturday, with a half-day workshop and introduction session to Wikipedia and the topic of bridging the gender gap. Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, founder of the Sambad group, said at the event:

"Technology is always considered an enemy of language. Now is the time for language and technology to collaborate. New technologies have been developed over the last couple of years. If we can implement these technologies in our own language and accept it as a friend, we can take our language ahead. With the help of Odia Wikipedia, people using smartphones and other smart devices can access the information in their own language."

After a round of participants’ self-introduction, Sailesh Patnaik, Community Advocate, CIS-A2K introduced Odia Wikipedia, Odia input tools and how to edit. Some participants were able to create their Wikipedia accounts on the first day. CIS-A2K Research Intern, Ting-Yi Chang, highlighted in her presentation, the reasons for and significance of the Wikipedia gender gap. The event is an important effort to help Odia Wikipedia and its readers combat the gender bias in knowledge creation.

On March 19, Sunday, participants began hands on editing with the help of local Wikimedians from the Bhubaneswar Tungi community. Each participant had chosen a female achiever in advance and had prepared citable sources from the Sambad publications. The chosen figures are influential and important women in Odisha history and society, such as Kalpana Dash, the first Odia mountaineer to scale Mt. Everest, Parbati Ghosh, an accomplished Odia film-maker, Shyamamani Patnaik, a famous Odishi singer,among others. In total, 23 female biography articles were created and improved during the edit-a-thon. In an anonymous survey conducted during the event, over three-quarters of the participants said that they do not find editing difficult and over 80 percent of the participants express interest in writing about women or women-related subjects on Wikipedia.

However, since all the participants were first-time Wikipedians, the edit-a-thon was not without its challenges. Some participants had trouble getting used to the Unicode input method for the Odia script. Many of them are familiar with Shree lipi, an older input method that is not supported by Unicode interfaces such as Wikipedia. Luckily, a Shree lipi-to-Unicode conversion application was available on the computers at the venue; however, the conversion is not always perfect and the process can make editing more time consuming. A handout was given to the participants to help familiarize themselves with the new input method. Additionally, the organizers discovered the need to elaborate on what is considered a reliable source for reference. Participants were reminded during the event that in addition to the sources available at the Sambad office, they can also use other news articles on the Internet as long as they are published by credible news publishers.

Despite its challenges, the Sambad 100 Edit-a-thon was able to stand out and succeed because of a combination of the global initiative and a localized focus, the abundance of reliable resources available for editing, support from the Odia Wikipedia community, and the post-event media exposure. For example, the event was inspired by the BBC 100 Women global edit-a-thon series but was planned and carried out in the Odisha context - using Odia script, Odisha figures, and sources in Odisha’s most prominent newspaper. That being said, the existence of verifiable citation is often more crucial than one’s editing skills or writing style in determining the fate of a new article on Wikipedia. Holding the event in the Sambad office in Bhubaneswar not only ensured the availability of necessary facilities but also equipped us with abundant sources that can be cited in the articles.

The event also served as an example of regional community collaboration. Thanks to the strong support team from the Bhubaneswar WikiTungi community, participants were able to consult (both male and female) tutors throughout the event when questions emerged. The new Wikipedians were invited to join future monthly WikiTungi meetups in the city.

Finally, it is worth noting that a significant part of event was its reach. Sambad helped the event and the movement tremendously not only with their support in event planning and execution, but also with media exposure. Although the event could only accommodate around 20 participants, raising public awareness through mass media could help more people know about the existence of Odia Wikipedia and the issue of gender gap within.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sambad-100-women-edit-a-thon

Research Studies on Indian Language Wikimedia Projects 2019-21

sneha — 2022-10-21T12:59:55Z

This is a compilation of the final reports from a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019-2021, on an array of topics related to Indian language Wikimedia projects. The projects were undertaken by Subodh Kulkarni, Bodhisattwa Mandal, Bhuvana Meenakshi Koteeswaran, Ananth Subray, Satpal Dandiwal and Nitesh Gill, with research oversight and editorial support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and internal review by Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Ambika Tandon.

See the full report on Wikimedia Commons here

Click to download the full report here

Wikipedia and its many sister projects have been rich sites of study for researchers across the world for many years now. The online encyclopedia presents a microcosm of the real world in terms of the dynamics of knowledge production and use, including content and infrastructure, and community interaction among many other things. Research about Wikimedia projects and platforms has been undertaken in various languages, and from multidisciplinary perspectives, as illustrated by the research index on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, and several important publications over the last several years. Research on Indian languageWikimedia projects and platforms, and on topics related to the sub-continent have also emerged significantly over the last several years.However, as understood in the course of the studies in this compilation as well, awareness about such research within the communities itself remains limited. While there is a lot of important work being undertaken on topics relevant to Indian Wikimedia projects, often by researchers who are Wikimedians themselves, factors such as dissemination beyond academic spaces, and accessibility in terms of language and context seem to also affect their availability to the larger communities, and in terms of implementation of learnings and recommendations.

The six short-term research studies undertaken by the Access to Knowledge team over 2019–2021 were therefore initiated as a pilot, an initial foray into the space of research on Wikimedia projects in India. Based on the recommendations of the Wikimedia Foundation, this work was undertaken primarily to tap into new areas of work, while also drawing upon existing expertise at CIS, and in order to build the capacity of the team. With these broader motivations in mind, the research was structured with the following objectives to:

Identify knowledge gaps, challenges, and opportunities in different aspects of content creation and participation in Indian language Wikimedia projects.
Develop a better understanding of systemic issues such as gender bias in Indian language communities, access to and reuse of cultural content, open learning in multilingual classrooms, and specific experiences of content creation within Wikimedia communities in India and associated initiatives.
Develop recommendations and best practices towards addressing existing challenges and optimising available resources for the larger free knowledge movement.

The studies in this compilation therefore examine different aspects of Wikimedia platforms and projects in India, in close alignment with existing work in the programme. These include the gender gap in Indian Wikimedia communities, creating multilingual and open educational platforms and resources, focus on specific projects such as GLAM and Wikidata, and efforts and challenges with content creation, access and outreach in specific language communities.

Working on these studies has been a learning experience, especially given the diverse contexts in which the projects are located, and the capacities and interests of the researchers themselves. The design of the studies was also therefore developed and modified to build on existing capacities within the team, and its learnings from previous years of working with various language communities. Capacity-building for team members on research design, methods, fieldwork and documentation was mostly done through close individual supervision and collaborative work. The methods used were largely qualitative, and ranged from interviews, literature reviews, data visualisations, focused group discussions and comparative analyses. The effort was also to try and capture the scale and diversity of the nature of work being undertaken in different Indian language communities through these projects. There were several challenges as well, beginning with framing the research questions and project design in a way that they were accessible to a wider community of people who would be engaged in contributing their inputs towards the work. Process-related challenges, such as translation of interview questionnaires into Indian languages revealed several interesting gaps, such as the lack of technical terms related to digitization or open access in these languages. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 led to restrictions on field visits, thus effectively hampering in person conversations and easier access to community members.

There have been several learnings in the course of working on these studies, key among them being questions of awareness, relevance and impact. The lack of existing and easily accessible research (including those outside academic work) on several areas of Wikimedia in the Indian context has been a limitation in many ways, offering little in terms of available knowledge and best practices to work with. The limited awareness about, and imagined relevance of research in the regular work of communities has also been an impediment. As illustrated by learnings from a short research needs assessment carried out earlier this year, few community members were aware of research on Wikimedia projects being undertaken in India, and on a global scale. More importantly, there needs to be a conversation on its relevance to their own work, and to the larger movement. An effective communication strategy for research work, in different Indian languages, would perhaps address some of these gaps. A closely related question is also that of impact. The studies in this collection largely focus on short-term impact, through best practices and recommendations that may be developed through the research studies. While this is definitely a pragmatic approach, often the interest in a problem-solution design may look at research purely from an instrumental lens to identify quick solutions and their implementation, without a critical take on exploring and understanding larger, systemic or structural gaps that may be contributing to the problems itself. Going forward, it would be imperative therefore to identify areas of research, and build processes of research design that may address these challenges. Given the dynamic nature of Wikimedia, its platforms and communities, it is important to identify immediate gaps and possible solutions, but also to speak precisely to this aspect of long-term impact and relevance, to both current areas of work and the growth of the larger movement. We hope the studies in this compilation offer some insights towards these, and many more interesting questions related to research on Wikimedia and the free knowledge movement in India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects

Report of Konkani Wikipedia's progress (July-December 2015)

rahim — 2016-02-05T02:49:29Z

Konkani language is one of the 22 languages recognized by Indian union in 8th schedule. As per the 2007 census there are about 7.4 million Konkani speakers.[1] Konkani language has its own Wikipedia created on 15th June 2015. This blog post will try to put out Konkani Wikipedia's growth from a perspective based on Wikimedia stats.

Konkani language has varied scripts used by its speakers. There are more than six different scripts in which Konkani people seem to be writing, of these, Devanagari (same as Hindi, Marathi), Romi (Roman or Latin script) and Kannada script are more popular. The project went out of incubation and became a live Wikipedia project as Goan Konkani Wikipedia (language code gom and is available at gom.wikipedia.org).The Konkani community that contributes on Wikipedia is mostly present in Goa with a few contributors living elsewhere.

Below is the last 6 months' statistics of Goan Konkani Wikipedia:

	Total Editors	New editors	Active editors	Very active editors	Article count	New article created per month
July 2015	124		8	4	2100	8
August 2015	125	1	6	3	2300	6
September 2015	125		5	4	2400	1
October 2015	125		5	3	2400	1
November 2015	125		2		2400

Observations:

As we see the total number editors is at a good state as compared to other language Wikipedia projects that have gone live recently. Also the article count seem to be significant.
But the growth in total number of editors is not that encouraging and needs to be worked upon. This might be probably because of unawareness of Konkani Wikipedia among the native language speakers.
The active editor count has been declining over the 6 months. For the month of December, there has been no activity from the active community on Konkani Wikipedia.
Number of the most active Wikipedians will grow once we proactively engage with the existing community in organising outreach to bring new editors.
There has been no new article created on Konkani Wikipedia in November and December at all. This is an alarming issue.
This is slightly disturbing as we can see from stats tables.
Of the 40 or so active Konkani Wikipedians, only 2 of them have done some small activity on Konkani Wikipedia, whereas the rest have not visited the site for almost 3 months.
The community needs to be engaged with more and there is a need for bringing leadership. May be Konkani language encyclopedia Konkani Vishwakosh that was relicensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 license by the Goa University will be a useful resource to enhance the Goan Konkani Wikipedia.

Note:
1. Mikael Parkvall, "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in Nationalencyklopedin

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/konkani-wikipedia-progress-from-july-to-december-2015

Rejuvenating India’s Rivers the Wiki Way

subodh — 2019-04-01T13:18:33Z

Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organisation working on rejuvenation of rivers in India, has began documentation of rivers on Wiki, especially to draw attention to and mitigate the crisis of toxic deposits facing more than 40 rivers in India. The work was started by Jal Biradari, TBS’s Maharashtra based group, in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team of CIS. Here is the report from the first pilot workshop conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, in Alwar, Rajasthan.

Events details on Wikimedia meta page

The Workshop

As per a Government of India report 42 rivers in India are polluted with toxic heavy metal deposits in them. To mitigate this crisis Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organization working on rejuvenation of rivers in India began documentation of rivers on Wiki. The work was started by TBS’s Maharashtra based group Jal Biradari in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge team of CIS (CIS-A2K).

Realizing the potential of the project TBS decided to integrate this as training module in their capacity building workshops conducted at Bhikampura in Rajasthan. The first pilot workshop was conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, Bhikampura, Alwar in Rajasthan for 34 participants from eight states of India. Dr. Rajendra Singh, Maulik Sisodiya and Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K were the facilitators. The objectives behind organizing the workshop was to build an open knowledge resource on water related issues in all Indian languages, document the river basins of India, train volunteers working in the sector to work in Wikimedia projects, open street mapping exercises and photo walks along the river and post free content on Commons and Wikisource projects.

The documentation structure for river basin was decided through participatory process. The participants were divided into 6 groups for working on 6 river basins of Arvari district. The resource material available with TBS in the form of maps, reports, training booklets was used to prepare the schematic maps of each river basin. The water bodies such as ponds, manmade structures like dams were also listed.


Activists during the workshop conducted by TBS in Alwar, Rajasthan in December 2018

After this pre-work, the training on Wikipedia editing started. The participants worked in sandboxes first on their articles. The manual of style, giving offline and online references and categorisation were discussed and practiced on sandboxes. The Commons session started with elaborate discussion on copyrights, licenses and encyclopedic content. The images were uploaded on Commons and used in the articles. The articles in the sandboxes were presented by each working group. Taking into consideration various suggestions, appropriate modifications were done. The finished new articles and the additional content into existing articles were then moved in the main namespace of respective language Wikipedia. TBS has decided to re-license 30 books and training material on river in CC-BY-SA. Participants who attended the workshop have started contributing in various languages.

Participants' Feedback

“Rivers are essential for existence of life in land. Keeping its sanctity and health is very important. The Wikimedia workshop gave an insight on river pollution issues and the importance of reviving them. As Wikipedia is an open platform it can create a larger impact by reaching out to the society.” - Mrityunjay1010

“The wiki-workshop on "Rivers on Wiki" has been my maiden experience in the context of generalizing the knowledge for common good. The workshop gave me a lens to see the usage of Wikipedia in regional languages as a medium for environmental consciousness building as well as conservation. Wikipedia as a means for social audit was also another enriching experience in that workshop.” - Simantabharati

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way

Read Bengali, Malayalam classics online as free Wiki libraries grow

praskrishna — 2016-01-29T15:51:09Z

Content Includes Classics In Malayalam, Bengali.

The article by Sandhya Soman was published in the Times of India on January 10, 2016.

It was a hunt that took Shiju Alex to many places. Finally, his quest ended at Dharmaram College library in Bengaluru as Alex got hold of a copy of the firstever printed book in Malayalam. He scanned it promptly and volunteers uploaded the text on to Malayalam Wikisource, one of the free online libraries run by Wikipedia. Nasim Ali returned to Wikipedia editing only because fellow Odias were reaching out on social media to help upload the 13-volume Bhagavata Mahapuranam.Now, the entire work is available for free at Odia Wikisource.

Actions speak louder than words when it comes to preserving books in regional languages. Indian versions of Wikisource have more than 1 lakh pages of classic epics, philosophical tracts, and novels and poems in 10 languages. And the num bers are growing. “These are the books that we grow up with and connect emo tionally. Most of us would like to see them online,“ said Subhashish Panigrahi, Wikipedian and programme officer at the Centre for Internet and Society .

As Wikipedians come together in Bengaluru on Sunday to celebrate 15 years of editing and curating the encyclopedia in India, more such stories will be told. The growth has been tremendous in Indian language content creation, especially when it comes to setting up Wikisources, said A Ravishankar, programme director at the Wikimedia India chapter. Malayalam has 26,332 pages, including around 200 of the seminal books in the language. While Telugu has 29,039 pages, Bengali has around 11,000. Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada, Oriya, Marathi, Gujarati and Assamese libraries are also getting bigger. The content ranges from religious texts such as Ramayan and Bible to first-ever printed literary works.

“Most of these are books in the public domain or the ones relicensed with Creative Commons licences. This allows anyone to edit or make a copy of the work, making it reusable,“ said Panigrahi. Some of the relicensed works include the Kannada Vishwakosha brought out by University of Mysore.

It isn't easy to get works online. Alex finds it difficult to procure the original texts to create their PDF versions. “Every time I go to Kerala, I look for old books,“ said Alex, who uploads the PDFs on a public domain for others to upload them. Editors are also not easy to come by . Panigrahi took to social media to find a new set of editors when he was trying to upload the Bhagavatha volumes. “Wiki's volunteer-editors have their hands full. So we appealed on social media and many people signed up,“ he said.

But the effort is worth it, said Alex. Every time he unearths an old book and posts the link on his Facebook page, the reactions are full of surprise. “Many from the younger generation don't know that Samkshepa Vedartham (the first printed work in Malayalam) was printed in Rome. Also, researchers write to me saying they are happy to see the old books online,“ he said.

Students Pitch In

The Wikimedia Foundation has tied up with various colleges to help with typing and proof-reading. Around 120 students of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences in Bhubaneswar typed stanzas from the Bhagavata while Christ University students from Bengaluru uploaded chunks of the Kannada Vishwakosha as part of their curriculum.

Tech Hurdle

Though the project started in 2006 with Malayalam Wikisource, it spread to other Indian languages around five years ago. The biggest hurdle remains technology as the open source optical character recognition (OCR) software isn't compatible with many Indian languages. “Google's OCR that was launched last year is much better as it works with most Indian languages,“ said Ravishankar. The new software “extracts text from images of any printed text -and sometimes even handwriting, which opens the door to old texts, manuscripts, and more,“ reads Panigrahi's blog post.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-times-of-india-january-10-2016-sandhya-soman-read-bengali-malayalam-classics-online-as-free-wiki-libraries-grow

Re-licensing Sessions with Authors and Organisations

subodh — 2019-08-05T16:12:42Z

In collaboration with Marathi community, CIS-A2K is getting connected with various authors and organisations willing to re-license their content under CC-By-SA. A2K is facilitating the OTRS process Commons for re-licensing as well as digitisation of the content. The team of trained Wikimedians at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal, District Pune has taken the responsibility of digitising the books and further uploads in Wikimedia projects.

See the information posted on Wikipedia page here

In July, CIS-A2K facilitated the OTRS process of two organisations. Jnana Prabodhini and Saptahik Vivek Hindustan Prakashan Sanstha have released their 6 books and 8 volumes of encyclopedias respectively in CC-By-SA. As the organisations have solely published these books by sponsoring the writers, editors and designers, the authorised signatory of the organisation has to complete the OTRS process. The simple 'How to do' step by step manual was developed to facilitate this process. This process will be replicated by other organisations in near future. These books are valuable & reliable references in Marathi literature.

CIS-A2K conducted three sessions with authors also. In the field of rural development in Maharashtra, thoughts of Late S. G. Majgaonkar are highly regarded. His son Dhananjay Majgaonkar who holds the copyright for his books, completed the OTRS process and released 3 books in CC-By-SA. The books are now on Commons as well as Wikisource project.

Content donation sessions were conducted with Ila Dalwai, daughter of social reformer & writer Late Hamid Dalwai, thinker & writer Hari Narake and grand daughter of Marathi thinker & writer Late Narahar Kurundkar. These persons handed over the books to CIS-A2K for further process. The digitisation of the books has been started at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal.

The links of books uploaded on Commons are given below.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-31-2019-re-licensing-sessions-with-authors-and-organisations

Querying Wikipedia Data

pavanaja — 2016-10-21T14:51:01Z

Recently I wrote a blog about the stub article length of Wikipedia articles. I mentioned the difference in actual number of characters and the number of bytes used to define stub articles between English and Indian language Wikipedias. One can open any language Wikipedia, type Special:ShortPages in the search box to get the list of articles which have less than 2048 bytes.

Originally published blog can be accessed here.

However, as already mentioned in that blog, the number of bytes for Indian languages to be considered as stub should be actually 2048*3 = 6144 bytes employing the same criteria. How to find the list of articles fulfilling this condition?

This brings us to the topic of querying Wikipedia data. Wikimedia Foundation Labs has put up a website wherein one can run SQL queries on Wikimedia data. The URL of the website is quarry.wmflabs.org. When we open the website, we get a textbox wherein one can type the SQL query which will run on Wikimedia data. In this example I will consider Wikipedia only. But the queries can be run on the data of other Wikimedia projects like Wikisource, Wikidata, Wiktionary, etc.

One has to login with his/her Wikimedia login. After logging the SQL query can be typed in the textbox and the Submit Query button has to be clicked. The result of execution of the query on Wikimedia data will be displayed. In this blog I will throw more light on Kannada Wikipedia. The database for Kannada Wikipedia is called knwiki_p. Complete list of databases can be obtained by running the SQL query “show databases”.

To get the list of tables in Kannada Wikipedia, the following SQL queries have to be executed:

use knwiki_p;
show tables;

To know the scheme of any table, run the query desc <tablename>;. For example, to know the details of the table by name, issue the query desc page;. The fields which are of importance in the current case is page_title and page_len. The following query will list all articles in Kannada Wikipedia which are having less than 6144 bytes.

use knwiki_p;
select page_title, page_len
from page where page_len < ‘6144’ and page_namespace = 0 and page_is_redirect = 0 order by page_len ;

Some other useful queries are listed below:

Query	What it does
Select Count(*) from page where page_namespace = 0 and page_is_redirect =0;	Number of articles without redirect
Select Count(*) from page where page_namespace = 0 and page_is_redirect =0 and page_len < 6144;	Number of articles which are having bytes less than 6144
select * from user where user_name Like “P%”;	List all users whose username starts with letter “P”
select user_id, user_name, user_editcount from user where user_editcount >3000 order by user_editcount desc;	List all users with editcount more than 3000
SELECT page_namespace, page_title, page_len FROM page WHERE page_len > 175000 AND page_title NOT LIKE “%/%” ORDER BY page_namespace ASC;	List of long articles (articles having bytes more than 175000)
SELECT rc_title as title, rc_comment as comments, count(*) as Edits FROM recentchanges WHERE rc_namespace = 0 GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 3 DESC LIMIT 100;	Most edited 100 pages during past one month
SELECT log_title, COUNT() FROM logging WHERE log_type=”thanks” GROUP BY log_title ORDER BY COUNT() DESC LIMIT 100;	Who have been thanked most

Useful links -

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/querying-wikipedia-data

Promoting Online Content Through 'Wiki Malayalam'

praskrishna — 2016-05-06T15:35:14Z

Practical sessions on using Wiki Malayalam as a medium to preserve the language and promote digital media were held on Thursday, the final day of the two-day workshop on ‘Wiki Malayalam.’

The article was published by New Indian Express on May 6, 2016.

The event was organised jointly by Swadeshabhimani Media Study Centre in conjuction with Centre for Internet and Society and the Wiki Malayalam Fraternity. The sessions were promising, enriching and a big help for promoting online content through Wiki Malayalam which is still in its infancy, the participants said.

Rahimuddhim Sheik of Centre for Internet and Society, and Manoj Karangimadathil, Wikipedia Fraternity, led the sessions on Wiki technicals. It was followed by an interactive practical session wherein participants learned to be an editor and reporter in Wiki Malayalam. Participants were taught to create articles on sandbox through observation of articles published on Wikipedia.

Various aspects for making Wiki Malayalam presentable such as adding more images to the articles were imparted effectively.

Environmentalist Madhav Gadgil, speaking after inaugurating the two-day workshop,the other day, said, “Authenticity of the information in Wikipedia is often questioned but the discussion page offers the option to point out misleading information and to ensure true information and details.”

The introductory session by Madhav Gadgil incorporated various themes and ideas about the workshop, wikipedia commons, wikipedia projects, and its pillars and principles.

In his session he briefed about how wikipedia gives an in-depth information on particular material on a chronological order and various external references for further extensive reading. As an examples Madhav Gadgil discussed about the Athirapilly Hydroelectric Project in Wikipedia. It sets out a chance for anyone to start a new article on any subject.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/new-indian-express-may-6-2016-promoting-online-content-through-wiki-malayalam

Project Tiger 2.0

Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill — 2019-11-24T09:17:42Z

If you think that Indian languages are as important as international languages, like English, then, you are on the same page with this article. If not, then, let me explain, why it is a significant and much bigger issue than you think.

The blog post by Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill is in multiple languages: English, Punjabi, Hindi and Telugu.

భారతీయ భాషలు కూడా ఆంగ్లం వంటి అంతర్జాతీయ భాషలతో సమానంగా ముఖ్యమైనవి అని మీరు అనుకుంటే ఈ వ్యాసం మీరు తప్పకుండ చదవాలి. ఒక వేళా మీకు అలా అనిపించకపోతే, ఈ విషయం ఎంత ముఖ్యమైనది మరియు పెద్దది అని చెప్తాను చూడండి. ప్రతి రోజు లక్షల మంది వినియోగదారులు అంతర్జాలం నుండి సమాచారాన్ని పొందడానికి ప్రయత్నిస్తుంటారు. భారతదేశంలో, మాతృభాషలో సమాచారాన్ని పొందడానికి ప్రయత్నించే వినియోగదారుల సంఖ్య అధికంగా ఉంది. 2021వ సంవత్సరం నాటికీ, హిందీ వినియోగదారుల సంఖ్య ఆంగ్ల వినియోగదారుల సంఖ్యను అధిగమిస్తుందని మరియు మరికొన్ని భారతీయ భాషలు అంతర్జాలంలో 30% వినియోగదారులను కలిగి ఉంటాయని అధ్యయనం చెబుతుంది. 68% అంతర్జాల వినియోగదారులు ఆంగ్ల భాష సమాచారం కంటే స్థానిక భాషా సమాచారం నమ్మదగినదిగా భావిస్త్తున్నారని పరిశోధన పేర్కొనింది.

ఈ వాస్తవాలు అన్నీ ఉన్నప్పటికీ, భారతీయ భాషలలోని సమాచారాన్ని పొందకుండా వినియోగదారులను పరిమితం చేసే ఒక ప్రధాన కారణం, ఆన్‌లైన్‌లో కనిపించే భారీ జ్ఞాన అంతరం. గూగుల్ యొక్క పరిశోధనా బృందం భారతీయ భాషలలో అంతర్జాలంలో ఎక్కువగా శోధించిన మరియు తప్పిపోయిన అంశాల ఫలితాలను విశ్లేషించినప్పుడు, వారు వికీమీడియా ఫౌండేషన్‌తో భాగస్వామ్యం కావాలని నిర్ణయించుకున్నారు మరియు ప్రాజెక్ట్ టైగర్ అనే పైలట్ ప్రోగ్రామ్‌ను ప్రారంభించారు. దీనిని 2017లో, సెంటర్ ఫర్ ఇంటర్నెట్ అండ్ సొసైటీ - యాక్సిస్ టు నాలెడ్జ్ వారి సహకారంతో భారతీయ వికీమీడియన్లను తమ స్థానిక భాషలో నాణ్యత గల సమాచారమును అభివృద్ధి చేయటంలో ప్రోత్సహించడానికి ప్రారంభించారు.

ప్రాజెక్ట్ టైగర్ అనేది భారత దేశంలో పులులను రక్షించడం కోసం ప్రారంభించిన పర్యావరణ ప్రాజెక్ట్. దానిని స్ఫూర్తిగా తీసుకోని వికీపీడియా యొక్క ప్రాజెక్ట్ టైగర్ భారత దేశపు స్థానిక భాషలను సంరక్షించుకుంటూ స్థానిక భాషా వికీపీడియాలలో నాణ్యమైన సమాచారమును అభివృద్ధి చేయటమే లక్ష్యంగా పెట్టుకుంది. ఈ ప్రాజెక్ట్ రెండు దశల్లో జరుగుతుంది: ప్రాజెక్ట్ టైగర్ 2018 లో భాగంగా గూగుల్, వ్యాసాల రచనలను పెంచడానికి సాంకేతిక సహకారం అవసరమయ్యే అనుభవజ్ఞులైన వికీమీడియన్లకు మరియు ఆశాజనక వికీమీడియన్లకు 50 క్రోమ్‌బుక్‌లు మరియు 100 ఇంటర్నెట్ స్టైపెండ్‌లను అందచేయడం జరిగింది. పంపిణీ పూర్తయిన తర్వాత, కమ్యూనిటీలు గూగుల్ అందించిన జాబితా నుండి కథనాలను సృష్టించడం ప్రారంభించాయి.

2018 లో జరిగిన ప్రాజెక్ట్ టైగర్ యొక్క మొదటి పునరావృతంలో, 12 భారతీయ కమ్యూనిటీలు మార్చి నుండి మేల వరకు 3 నెలలు జరిగిన వ్యాస రచన పోటీలో పాల్గొని, మొత్తం 1,65,774 పేజీ వీక్షణలతో 4,466 వ్యాసాలను సృష్టించాయి! ప్రతి వ్యాసాన్ని సంబంధిత భాషా జ్యూరీ సభ్యుడు పారామితుల ప్రకారం సమీక్షిస్తారు. ఒక వ్యాసం అన్ని ప్రమాణాలకు అనుగుణంగా ఉంటేనే అది అంగీకరించబడుతుంది. ఈ పోటీలో పంజాబీ కమ్యూనిటీ 1320 వ్యాసాలతో విజయం సాధించింది, తమిళ కమ్యూనిటీ 1241 వ్యాసాలతో రెండవ స్థానంలో ఉంది.

ప్రతి కమ్యూనిటీ నుండి మొదటి మూడు స్థానాలలోవచ్చినవిజేతలకు ఇచ్చే నెలవారీ బహుమతులతో పాటు, గెలిచిన మరియు రన్నరప్ కమ్యూనిటీలు పంజాబ్‌లోని అమృత్సర్‌లో 3 రోజుల శిక్షణను పొందారు. ఈ ట్రైనింగ్సెషన్కు యూజర్: అసఫ్ (WMF) నాయకత్వం వహించారు, అక్కడ అతను ఎన్సైక్లోపెడిక్ విలువతో వ్యాసాలు రాయడం గురించి పాల్గొనేవారికి నేర్పించాడు మరియు వికీడేటా మరియు అందులో ఉపయోగించిన సాధనాలను కూడా పరిచయం చేశాడు.

2018 లో ప్రాజెక్ట్ టైగర్ యొక్క భారీ విజయాన్ని చూసిన తరువాత, రెండవ పునరుక్తిని ప్రాజెక్ట్ టైగర్ 2.0 లేదా గ్లో (వికీపీడియాలో పెరుగుతున్న స్థానిక భాషా కంటెంట్) అని ప్రారంభించారు. భారతదేశంతో పాటు మరో రెండు దేశాల్లో ఇది మొదటిసారి నడుస్తోంది. ఇంతకుముందు పాల్గొన్న 12 భాషా సంఘాలతో పాటు, సంతాలి మరియు సంస్కృతం కూడా ఈ సంవత్సరం పోటీలో పాల్గొనడానికి అంగీకరించాయి. కమ్యూనిటీలు వ్రాయడానికి వారి స్వంత కథనాల సమితితో పాటు గూగుల్ ఇచ్చిన జాబితాతో వస్తున్నాయి. ఈ సంవత్సరం, ఈ ప్రాజెక్ట్ అధిక నాణ్యత కలిగిన కథనాలను లక్ష్యంగా పెట్టుకుంది. మరియు అన్నీ కమ్యూనిటీల వారు కూడా అదే విధంగా చేయటానికి కట్టుబడి ఉన్నాయి.

మీరు పోటీలో చేరడానికి ఆసక్తి కలిగి ఉంటే, దయచేసి ఈ లింకును సందర్శించండి

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Growing_Local_Language_Content_on_Wikipedia_(Project_Tiger_2.0)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/project-tiger-2-telugu

Project Tiger 2.0

Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill — 2019-11-24T09:15:06Z

The blog post by Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill is in multiple languages: English, Punjabi, Hindi and Telugu.

अगर आप सोचते हैं कि मूल भाषाएँ भी अंग्रेजी जैसी अंतरराष्ट्रीय भाषाओं जितनी ही महत्वपूर्ण है, तो इस पोस्ट को ज़रूर पढ़िए। यदि आपको ऐसा नही लगता, तो आइए आपको संक्षेप में बताएँ कि यह एक जरूरी और बड़ा मुद्दा है। हर दिन, लाखों उपभोगकर्ता इंटरनेट से जानकारी प्राप्त करने की कोशिश करते हैं। भारत में, बहु-गिनती अपनी मूल भाषा में जानकारी प्राप्त करने वालों की है। आंकड़े बताते हैं कि साल 2021 तक, हिन्दी उपभोगकर्ताओं की गिनती अंग्रेजी उपभोगकर्ताओं की गिनती को पार कर देगी और कुछ ओर भारती भाषाएँ मिलकर भारती भाषा के इंटरनेट उपभोग-कर्ता आधार का 30% बनती है। खोज अनुसार 68% इंटरनेट उपभोगकर्ता स्थानीय सामग्री को अंग्रेजी से ज्यादा भरोसेमंद मानता है।

इन सब तथ्यों के बावजूद, भारतीय भाषा के इंटरनेट उपभोगकर्ताओं के लिए जानकारी प्राप्त करने का दायरा बहुत सीमित है जिस का मुख्य कारण ऑनलाइन मौजूदा ज्ञान की कमी है। इस समस्या का समाधान करने के लिए, गूगल ने विकीमीडिया फ़ाउंडेशन के साथ मिलकर काम का फैसला लिया। गूगल और विकीमीडिया ने मिलकर एक पायलट प्रोजेक्ट शुरू किया जिस का नाम प्राजैकट टाइगर रखा रखा। इस प्रोजेक्ट को भारतीय भाषाओं के विकिपीडियाओं का समर्थन (Supporting Indian language Wikipedias) के नाम से भी जाना जाता है। 2017 में सैंटर फार इंटरनेट एंड सोसाइटी- एक्सिस टू नॉलेज के माध्यम से भारती विकीमिडीअनस के सहयोग के साथ स्थानीय भाषाओं के विकीपीडिया पर उच्च गुणवत्ता की सामग्री को तैयार करना शुरू किया गया।

प्रोजेक्ट टाइगर का नाम भारत में शुरू किए गए 'Save Tiger' प्रोजेक्ट से प्रेरित है। Save Tiger परियोजना का उद्देश्य टाइगर की रक्षा करना था और प्रोजेक्ट टाइगर का लक्ष्य भारतीय भाषाओं को संरक्षित करना और स्थानीय विकिपीडिया पर मूल भाषा में सामग्री तैयार करना है। इस परियोजना को दो चरणों में विभाजित किया गया है। पहले चरण में, गूगल ने 2018 में अनुभवी और सक्रिय विकीमीडिया को 50 क्रामबुक और 100 इंटरनेट सुविधाएँ प्रदान की थी। चयनित विकिमेडियनों को प्रौद्योगिकी सुविधाएँ प्रदान करने के बाद, प्रतियोगिता के लिए गूगल द्वारा उपलब्ध कराए गए लेखों की सूची से और समुदाय द्वारा उत्पादित स्थानीय लेखों की सूची से लेख बनाना शुरू किया।

प्रोजेक्ट टाइगर पहली बार 2018 में आयोजित किया गया था, जिसमें 12 भारतीय समुदाय शामिल थे। इन समुदायों ने मार्च से मई तक 3 महीने के लेख लेखन प्रतियोगिता में अपना योगदान दिया और 4,466 नए लेख बनाए। प्रत्येक समुदाय द्वारा अपनी स्वयं की जूरी चुनी गई थी, जिन्होंने मानदंडों के अनुसार बनाए गए लेखों की समीक्षा की थी। यदि कोई लेख सभी मापदंडों को पूरा करता है, तो उसे स्वीकार किया गया और एक अंक दिया गया। इस प्रतियोगिता में पंजाबी समुदाय ने कुल 1,320 लेखों के साथ प्रतियोगिता में जीत हासिल की, जबकि तमिल समुदाय 1,241 लेखों के साथ दूसरे स्थान पर रहा।

प्रत्येक समुदाय के प्रथम तीन प्रतिभागियों को मासिक पुरस्कार देने के अलावा, विजेता और उप-विजेता समुदायों को अमृतसर, पंजाब में तीन दिन का विकी प्रशिक्षण दिया गया था। इसका नेतृत्व User: Asaf (WMF) द्वारा किया गया जहां उन्होने प्रतिभागियों को लेख लिखने के लिए नियमों से परिचित कराया और विकीडाटा के बारे में बताने के साथ-साथ इसमें इस्तेमाल किए गए टूलों का उपयोग करना भी सिखाया गया।

2018 में प्रोजेक्ट टाइगर की उत्कृष्ट सफलता को देखने के बाद, दूसरी बार प्रोजेक्ट टाइगर का आयोजन किया जा रहा है, जिसका नाम प्रोजेक्ट टाइगर 2.0 या GLOW (GLOW-Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia) है। यह भारत के अलावा पहली बार दो ओर देशों में आयोजित किया जा रहा है। पिछली बार 12 भाषाई समुदायों ने इसमें भाग लिया था। इसके अलावा, इस वर्ष संथाली और संस्कृत भी इस प्रतियोगिता में भाग लेने के लिए सहमत हो गए हैं। समुदाय, जल्द ही, गूगल द्वारा उपलब्ध कराए गए लेखों की सूची और उनके द्वारा बनाई गई स्थानीय सूचियों से लेख बनाना शुरू करेंगे। इस वर्ष, इस परियोजना का उद्देश्य उच्च गुणवत्ता वाले लेख हैं और समुदाय ऐसा करने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध हैं।

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/project-tiger-2-hindi

Project Tiger 2.0

Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill — 2019-11-24T09:13:03Z

The blog post by Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill is in multiple languages: English, Punjabi, Hindi and Telugu.

ਜੇਕਰ ਤੁਸੀਂ ਸੋਚਦੇ ਹੋ ਕਿ ਮੂਲ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਵੀ ਅੰਗਰੇਜ਼ੀ ਵਰਗੀਆਂ ਅੰਤਰਰਾਸ਼ਟਰੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਜਿੰਨੀਆਂ ਮਹੱਤਵਪੂਰਣ ਹਨ, ਤਾਂ ਤੁਸੀਂ ਇਸ ਪੋਸਟ ਨੂੰ ਜ਼ਰੂਰ ਪੜ੍ਹੋ। ਜੇ ਤੁਹਾਨੂੰ ਇਸ ਤਰ੍ਹਾਂ ਨਹੀਂ ਲੱਗਦਾ ਹੈ, ਤਾਂ ਤੁਹਾਨੂੰ ਸੰਖੇਪ ਵਿਚ ਦੱਸ ਦਈਏ ਕਿ ਇਹ ਇੱਕ ਮਹੱਤਵਪੂਰਣ ਅਤੇ ਵੱਡਾ ਮੁੱਦਾ ਕਿਉਂ ਹੈ। ਹਰ ਰੋਜ਼, ਲੱਖਾਂ ਉਪਭੋਗਤਾ ਇੰਟਰਨੈਟ ਤੋਂ ਜਾਣਕਾਰੀ ਪ੍ਰਾਪਤ ਕਰਨ ਦੀ ਕੋਸ਼ਿਸ਼ ਕਰਦੇ ਹਨ। ਭਾਰਤ ਵਿੱਚ, ਆਪਣੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾ (ਮੂਲ ਭਾਸ਼ਾ) ਵਿੱਚ ਜਾਣਕਾਰੀ ਪ੍ਰਾਪਤ ਕਰਨ ਦੀ ਕੋਸ਼ਿਸ਼ ਕਰਨ ਵਾਲਿਆਂ ਦੀ ਬਹੁਤਾਤ ਹੈ। ਅੰਕੜੇ ਕਹਿੰਦੇ ਹਨ ਕਿ ਸਾਲ 2021 ਤੱਕ, ਹਿੰਦੀ ਉਪਭੋਗਤਾਵਾਂ ਦੀ ਗਿਣਤੀ ਅੰਗਰੇਜ਼ੀ ਉਪਭੋਗਤਾਵਾਂ ਦੀ ਗਿਣਤੀ ਨੂੰ ਪਾਰ ਕਰ ਦੇਵੇਗੀ ਅਤੇ ਕੁਝ ਹੋਰ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਮਿਲਕੇ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾ ਦੇ ਇੰਟਰਨੈਟ ਉਪਭੋਗਤਾ ਅਧਾਰ ਦਾ 30% ਬਣਦੀਆਂ ਹਨ। ਖੋਜ ਇਹ ਵੀ ਕਹਿੰਦੀ ਹੈ ਕਿ 68% ਇੰਟਰਨੈਟ ਉਪਭੋਗਤਾ ਸਥਾਨਕ ਸਮੱਗਰੀ ਨੂੰ ਅੰਗਰੇਜ਼ੀ ਸਮੱਗਰੀ ਨਾਲੋਂ ਵਧੇਰੇ ਭਰੋਸੇਮੰਦ ਮੰਨਦੇ ਹਨ।

ਇਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਸਾਰੇ ਤੱਥਾਂ ਦੇ ਬਾਵਜੂਦ, ਭਾਰਤੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾ ਦੇ ਇੰਟਰਨੈਟ ਉਪਭੋਗਤਾਵਾਂ ਲਈ ਜਾਣਕਾਰੀ ਤੱਕ ਪਹੁੰਚ ਕਰਨ ਦਾ ਦਾਇਰਾ ਭੂਤ ਸੀਮਤ ਹੈ ਜਿਸ ਦਾ ਮੁੱਖ ਕਾਰਨ ਆਨਲਾਈਨ ਮੌਜੂਦਾ ਗਿਆਨ ਦਾ ਵੱਡਾ ਪਾੜਾ ਹੈ। ਇਸ ਸਮੱਸਿਆ ਨੂੰ ਪਛਾਣਦਿਆਂ, ਗੂਗਲ ਨੇ ਪਾਇਆ ਕਿ ਸਥਾਨਕ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਸਮਗਰੀ ਨੂੰ ਉਪਲਬਧ ਕਰਵਾਉਣਾ ਜ਼ਰੂਰੀ ਹੈ ਤਾਂ ਗੂਗਲ ਨੇ ਵਿਕੀਮੀਡੀਆ ਨਾਲ ਮਿਲ ਕੇ ਕੰਮ ਕਰਨ ਦਾ ਫੈਸਲਾ ਕੀਤਾ। ਗੂਗਲ ਅਤੇ ਵਿਕੀਮੀਡੀਆ ਫਾਉਂਡੇਸ਼ਨ ਨੇ ਪ੍ਰਾਜੈਕਟ ਟਾਈਗਰ ਨਾਮਕ ਇੱਕ ਪਾਇਲਟ ਪ੍ਰੋਗਰਾਮ ਸ਼ੁਰੂ ਕੀਤਾ। ਇਸ ਨੂੰ, ਭਾਰਤੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਦੇ ਵਿਕੀਪੀਡੀਆ ਦਾ ਸਮਰਥਨ (Supporting Indian language Wikipedias) ਵਜੋਂ ਵੀ ਜਾਣਿਆ ਜਾਂਦਾ ਹੈ, 2017 ਵਿਚ ਸੈਂਟਰ ਫਾਰ ਇੰਟਰਨੈਟ ਐਂਡ ਸੁਸਾਇਟੀ - ਐਕਸੈਸ ਟੂ ਨੋਲਜ ਦੇ ਮਾਧਿਅਮ ਰਾਹੀਂ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਵਿਕੀਮੀਡੀਅਨਜ਼ ਦੇ ਸਹਿਯੋਗ ਨਾਲ ਸਥਾਨਕ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਦੇ ਵਿਕੀਪੀਡੀਆ 'ਤੇ ਉੱਚ ਪੱਧਰੀ ਸਮੱਗਰੀ ਨੂੰ ਤਿਆਰ ਕਰਨਾ ਸ਼ੁਰੂ ਕੀਤਾ।https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program

ਪ੍ਰਾਜੈਕਟ ਟਾਈਗਰ ਦਾ ਨਾਂ, ਭਾਰਤ ਦੇ ਵਿਚ ਸ਼ੁਰੂ ਹੋਏ 'Save Tiger' ਪ੍ਰਾਜੈਕਟ ਤੋਂ ਪ੍ਰੇਰਿਤ ਹੋ ਕੇ ਰੱਖਿਆ ਗਿਆ ਹੈ। ਇਸ ਪ੍ਰਾਜੈਕਟ ਦਾ ਮਕਸਦ ਚਿੱਤਿਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਬਚਾਉਣਾ ਸੀ ਅਤੇ ਪ੍ਰਾਜੈਕਟ ਟਾਈਗਰ ਦਾ ਉਦੇਸ਼ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਬਚਾਉਣਾ ਤੇ ਸਥਾਨਕ ਵਿਕੀਪੀਡੀਆ 'ਤੇ ਸਥਾਨਕ ਭਾਸ਼ਾ 'ਚ ਸਮੱਗਰੀ ਨੂੰ ਤਿਆਰ ਕਰਨਾ ਹੈ। ਇਸ ਪ੍ਰੋਜੈਕਟ ਨੂੰ ਦੋ ਪੜਾਵਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਵਿਭਾਜਿਤ ਕੀਤਾ ਗਿਆ ਹੈ। ਪਹਿਲੇ ਪੜਾਅ ਵਿਚ 2018 ਵਿਚ ਗੂਗਲ ਦੁਆਰਾ ਅਨੁਭਵੀ ਅਤੇ ਸਰਗਰਮ ਵਿਕੀਮੀਡੀਅਨਾਂ ਨੂੰ 50 ਕ੍ਰਾਮਬੁੱਕ ਅਤੇ 100 ਇੰਟਰਨੈਟ ਸੁਵਿਧਾਵਾਂ ਪ੍ਰਦਾਨ ਕੀਤੀਆਂ ਜਾਂਦੀਆਂ ਹਨ। ਜਦੋਂ ਇੱਕ ਵਾਰ ਚੁਨਿੰਦਾ ਵਿਕੀਮੀਡੀਅਨਜ਼ ਨੂੰ ਤਕਨਾਲੋਜੀ ਸੰਬੰਧੀ ਸੁਵਿਧਾਵਾਂ ਪ੍ਰਦਾਨ ਕਰ ਦਿੱਤੀਆਂ ਜਾਂਦੀਆਂ ਹਨ ਤਾਂ ਇਸ ਮੁਕਾਬਲੇ ਦੇ ਭਾਗੀਦਾਰ ਭਾਈਚਾਰੇ ਗੂਗਲ ਦੁਆਰਾ ਪ੍ਰਦਾਨ ਕੀਤੀ ਲੇਖਾਂ ਦੀ ਸੂਚੀ ਅਤੇ ਭਾਈਚਾਰੇ ਦੁਆਰਾ ਬਣਾਈ ਸਥਾਨਕ ਲੇਖਾਂ ਦੀ ਸੂਚੀ ਵਿਚੋਂ ਲੇਖ ਬਣਾਉਣੇ ਸ਼ੁਰੂ ਕੀਤੇ।

ਪ੍ਰਾਜੈਕਟ ਟਾਈਗਰ ਨੂੰ ਪਹਿਲੀ ਵਾਰ 2018 ਵਿੱਚ ਆਯੋਜਿਤ ਕੀਤਾ ਗਿਆ ਸੀ ਜਿਸ ਵਿਚ 12 ਭਾਰਤੀ ਭਾਈਚਾਰਿਆਂ ਨੇ ਭਾਗ ਲਿਆ ਸੀ। ਇਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਭਾਈਚਾਰਿਆਂ ਨੇ ਮਾਰਚ ਤੋਂ ਮਈ ਦੇ ਦੌਰਾਨ 3 ਮਹੀਨੇ ਦੇ ਲੇਖ ਲਿਖਣ ਮੁਕਾਬਲੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਆਪਣਾ ਯੋਗਦਾਨ ਪਾਇਆ ਅਤੇ 4,466 ਨਵੇਂ ਲੇਖਾਂ ਦਾ ਵਾਧਾ ਕੀਤਾ। ਹਰੇਕ ਭਾਈਚਾਰੇ ਦੀ ਆਪਣੀ ਜਿਊਰੀ ਚੁਣੀ ਗਈ ਸੀ ਜਿਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਨੇ ਲੇਖਾਂ ਦੀ ਮਾਪਦੰਡਾਂ ਅਨੁਸਾਰ ਸਮੀਖਿਆ ਕੀਤੀ। ਜੇਕਰ ਕੋਈ ਲੇਖ ਸਾਰੇ ਮਾਪਦੰਡਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਪੂਰਾ ਕਰਦਾ ਸੀ, ਤਾਂ ਉਸ ਨੂੰ ਸਵੀਕਾਰ ਕਰ ਇੱਕ ਪੁਆਇੰਟ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਜਾਂਦਾ ਸੀ। ਇਸ ਮੁਕਾਬਲੇ ਵਿਚ ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਭਾਈਚਾਰੇ ਨੇ ਕੁਲ 1320 ਲੇਖਾਂ ਨਾਲ ਮੁਕਾਬਲਾ ਜਿੱਤਿਆ, ਜਦਕਿ ਤਾਮਿਲ ਭਾਈਚਾਰੇ ਨੇ 1241 ਲੇਖਾਂ ਨਾਲ ਦੂਜਾ ਸਥਾਨ ਹਾਸਿਲ ਕੀਤਾ।

ਹਰੇਕ ਭਾਈਚਾਰੇ ਵਿਚੋਂ ਚੋਟੀ ਦੇ ਤਿੰਨ ਭਾਗੀਦਾਰਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਮਾਸਿਕ ਇਨਾਮ ਦੇਣ ਤੋਂ ਇਲਾਵਾ, ਜੇਤੂ ਅਤੇ ਉਪ-ਜੇਤੂ ਭਾਈਚਾਰਿਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਇਨਾਮ ਵਜੋਂ 3 ਦਿਨਾਂ ਦੀ ਵਿਕੀ ਸੰਬੰਧੀ ਸਿਖਲਾਈ ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤਸਰ, ਪੰਜਾਬ ਵਿਖੇ ਦਿੱਤੀ ਗਈ। ਇਸ ਦੀ ਅਗਵਾਈ User:Asaf (WMF) ਦੁਆਰਾ ਕੀਤੀ ਗਈ ਜਿੱਥੇ ਉਸਨੇ ਭਾਗੀਦਾਰਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਲੇਖ ਲਿਖਣ ਦੇ ਨਿਯਮਾਂ ਤੋਂ ਜਾਣੂ ਕਰਵਾਇਆ ਅਤੇ ਵਿਕੀਡਾਟਾ ਬਾਰੇ ਤੇ ਇਸ ਵਿੱਚ ਵਰਤੇ ਜਾਣ ਵਾਲੇ ਟੂਲਾਂ ਦੀ ਵਰਤੋਂ ਕਰਨੀ ਆਦਿ ਦੀ ਸਿਖਲਾਈ ਦਿੱਤੀ।

2018 ਵਿੱਚ ਪ੍ਰੋਜੈਕਟ ਟਾਈਗਰ ਦੀ ਬੇਮਿਸਾਲ ਸਫਲਤਾ ਵੇਖਣ ਤੋਂ ਬਾਅਦ, ਦੂਸਰੀ ਵਾਰ ਵੀ ਪ੍ਰਾਜੈਕਟ ਟਾਈਗਰ ਆਯੋਜਿਤ ਕੀਤਾ ਜਾ ਰਿਹਾ ਹੈ ਜਿਸ ਨੂੰ ਪ੍ਰੋਜੈਕਟ ਟਾਈਗਰ 2.0 ਜਾਂ ਗਲੋਅ (GLOW -Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia) ਦਾ ਨਾਂ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਗਿਆ ਹੈ। ਇਹ ਪਹਿਲੀ ਵਾਰ ਭਾਰਤ ਤੋਂ ਇਲਾਵਾ ਦੋ ਹੋਰ ਦੇਸ਼ਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਆਯੋਜਿਤ ਕੀਤਾ ਜਾ ਰਿਹਾ ਹੈ। ਇਸ ਵਿਚ ਪਿਛਲੀ ਵਾਰ 12 ਭਾਸ਼ਾਈ ਭਾਈਚਾਰਿਆਂ ਨੇ ਭਾਗ ਲਿਆ ਸੀ, ਇਸ ਤੋਂ ਇਲਾਵਾ, ਇਸ ਸਾਲ ਸੰਥਾਲੀ ਅਤੇ ਸੰਸਕ੍ਰਿਤ ਵੀ ਇਸ ਮੁਕਾਬਲੇ ਵਿਚ ਸ਼ਾਮਲ ਹੋਣ ਲਈ ਰਜ਼ਾਮੰਦ ਹੋਏ ਹਨ। ਭਾਈਚਾਰੇ ਗੂਗਲ ਦੁਆਰਾ ਪ੍ਰਦਾਨ ਕੀਤੀ ਲੇਖਾਂ ਦੀ ਸੂਚੀ ਅਤੇ ਆਪਣੇ ਦੁਆਰਾ ਬਣਾਈ ਸਥਾਨਕ ਸੂਚੀ ਵਿਚੋਂ ਲੇਖ ਬਣਾਉਣਾ ਸ਼ੁਰੂ ਕਰਣਗੇ। ਇਸ ਸਾਲ, ਪ੍ਰਾਜੈਕਟ ਦਾ ਉਦੇਸ਼ ਉੱਚ ਗੁਣਵੱਤਾ ਵਾਲੇ ਲੇਖ ਹਨ ਅਤੇ ਭਾਈਚਾਰੇ ਵੀ ਅਜਿਹਾ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ ਵਚਨਬੱਧ ਹਨ।

ਜੇ ਤੁਸੀਂ ਮੁਕਾਬਲੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਸ਼ਾਮਲ ਹੋਣਾ ਚਾਹੁੰਦੇ ਹੋ, ਤਾਂ ਕਿਰਪਾ ਕਰਕੇ ਇੱਥੇ ਦੇਖੋ।

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/project-tiger-2-punjabi

Project Tiger 2.0

Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill — 2019-11-24T09:18:00Z

The blog post by Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill is in multiple languages: English, Punjabi, Hindi and Telugu.

Every day, millions of users try to access information from the internet. In India, the number of users who try to access information in their own language (native/Indic language) is mind-boggling. Study says that by the year 2021, the number of Hindi users will surpass that of the English users and a few other indic languages which together form 30% of the Indian languages internet user base. Research also says that 68% of internet users consider local language content to be more reliable than English content.

Despite all these facts, one major reason that is limiting users from accessing information in Indian Languages, is the huge knowledge gap that is found online. When Google’s research team analyzed the results of most searched yet missing topics on the internet in Indian Languages, they decided to partner with the Wikimedia Foundation and started a pilot program called Project Tiger, also known as Supporting Indian language Wikipedias in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge in 2017 to support Indic Wikimedians in generating high quality content in their local language Wikipedias. Read More.

Project Tiger, as the name suggests, is inspired by, and named after, an environmental project in India, to save tigers. Similarly, Wikipedia’s project Tiger, aims at nurturing locally relevant content on Indic language Wikipedias. This project happens in two phases:The first phase during early 2018 is when Google provided 50 Acer Laptops and 100 Internet stipends to experienced and promising Wikimedians, who needed infrastructure support to increase contributions. Once the distribution is done, communities start creating articles from the list provided by Google. Read More

In the first iteration of Project Tiger held in 2018, 12 Indic communities came forward and took part in the 3 month article writing contest during March-May and created over 4,466 articles with total page views of 1,65,774! Every article is reviewed by the corresponding language jury member against several parameters. Only if an article meets all the criteria, it gets accepted. The Punjabi community won the contest with a whopping 1320 articles followed by the Tamil community with 1241 articles. Read More

Besides the monthly prizes given to the top three contributors from each community, the winner and the runner up communities had a 3-day training session at Amritsar, Punjab. This session was lead by User:Asaf (WMF) where he taught the participants on writing articles with encyclopedic value and also introduced Wikidata and tools used in it. Read More

After witnessing the humongous success of Project Tiger in 2018, the second iteration has been rolled out which is called Project Tiger 2.0 or GLOW (Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia). This is being run in four more countries apart from India for the first time. In addition to the 12 language communities that participated previously, Santali, Punjabi(Shanmukhi script) and Sanskrit also have agreed to join the contest this year. Communities have also come up with their own set of articles to write on, along with the list given by Google. This year, the project aims at articles with high quality and communities are committed to doing the same.

If you are interested in joining, please visit this page.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/suswetha-kolluru-and-nitesh-gill-november-22-2019-project-tiger-2

Preserving Languages and Cultures in India: The Birth of the Tulu Wikipedia

subha — 2016-09-07T15:35:43Z

After eight years of effort and outreach, the Tulu language Wikipedia has gone live. Wikimedia contributors play a key role in preserving languages and cultures, and tools like the Wikimedia Incubator help new projects like the Tulu Wikipedia get started.

The blog post was published by Opensource.com on August 26, 2016. This got mentioned in Wikipedia's newsletter "The Signpost".

Tulu is a language spoken by three to five million people in the states of Karnataka and Kerala in the southwest and south India respectively, and by some people in the US and in Gulf countries. Tulu Wikipedia is the 294th Wikipedia and the 23rd South Asian language Wikipedia.

The Tulu Wikipedia grew in the Wikimedia Incubator for about eight years before going online. So far, 198 editors have contributed 1285 articles, and the active editors that have more than 5 edits in the project number between 5-10.

Tulu Wikipedia started back in 2008 with just one or two editors. But neither the project nor the community remained active except for sporadic edits. Without any meetups or outreach it was difficult for those editors to work as a community to bring the project live. The Centre for Internet and Society—Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) program, a catalytic program funded by the Wikimedia Foundation to support and grow the Indian language Wikipedias and Wikimedia projects in the Indian subcontinent, started work on building a community for Tulu in 2014. It all started with an informal meetup, and then more community meetups started happening. The community also conducted Wikipedia editing training workshops, and two major educational institutions came forward to help grow the community and the project.

These institutions, St. Aloysius College and St. Agnes College in Mangaluru in the state of Karnataka, introduced the Wikipedia Education Program where students started editing Wikipedia as part of their syllabus. Vishwanatha Badikana, assistant professor of the Kannada language department at St. Aloysius, became an active Tulu Wikipedia editor himself and led the outreach activities in the institution. Similarly, many students from both the institutions also contributed articles of diverse subject areas.

However, the community is still fairly small and has to grow outside of the institutions. "A series of eight how-to video tutorials have been created to help editors to learn about Wikipedia policies and guidelines, manual of style and overall editing. Many students have contributed in creating these tutorials", says Dr. Badikana. The current set of editors are doing their best in spreading the word about the project while safeguarding the core values of Wikipedia. In an interview to media portal Daijiworld, Bharathesha Alasandemajalu, an active editor based in Oman said, "Anyone can write or edit articles on Wikipedia Tulu, but it should not be plagiarised. The photos should be one's own or uploaded with valid permission from the owner. This will help the future generation to know more about the language and act as a source of information on Tulu language and culture."

One of the biggest challenges, apart from the limitations in attracting new contributors, is the lack of Unicode support. Unicode is a global standard for scripts, and the Tigalari script that is used to write in Tulu is not encoded in Unicode. At the moment, all the articles in the Tulu Wikipedia are written in the Kannada script as the speakers are mostly based in the state of Karnataka, and speak Kannada as a second language.

With its great and long linguistic heritage, Tulu is still struggling to be widely used, especially in its native script. The lack of promotion is also evident as the official body, the Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy, that is set up by the Karnataka government uses Kannada and English in the official portal. However, Dr. Badikana shared in an interview to the author that he is hopeful to see more Tulu speakers contributing to Tulu Wikipedia, as he feels that growing language content online would be the best thing to do along with working in a conventional classroom.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/preserving-languages-and-cultures-in-india-the-birth-of-the-tulu-wikipedia