Centre for Internet and Society

Magic words in Wikipedia

tanvir — 2015-09-14T08:37:56Z

The struggle of finding solutions for replacing and retrieving content /words/facts and figures, in this day and age of machines that seem to know everything should ideally be a non-issue. Yet, for many of us who write reports based on the data available at that moment, it is nothing less than a nightmare to come to know that there has been a significant change in the data with which our reports have been written.

How does one mediate between the ever changing nature of data in general and more specifically understand the way a publicly curated knowledge ecology operates (Wikipedia can be taken as an example). It is made clear to us by the various earlier reports¹ that the amount of data exchange and content generation can be astonishingly high when one takes into acount Open Knowledge repositiries such as Wikipedia in the major languages of the world, commons.wikimedia project and other Wikimedia projects.

Our understanding of the available data can often lead us to erroneous conclusions, if one does not account for the constant updating nature of such data. The bigger risk is for a reader/researcher/user to assume that the data quoted in news reports/research or reports as static data (as against the dynamic data discussed here) and form conclusions based on the same. Another catastrophic possibility is to use the data procured in such fashion for planning and evaluation purposes. If one does not acknowledge the possibilty of change of data and plans only with the available data and does not account for the changes under contingency measures the entire planning might be off the mark and might not be successful when executed. Even for the purpose of evaluation, the constant change in data has to be tracked and monitored to appreciate the work/critical evaluation of the nature of the work.

How do we bell the Cat (read as the changing data) if not on the traditional print and digital platforms atleast in the Wikimedia universe? To do this manually is a task that is supremely tasking and prone to high error possibilities. If there is one thing researchers accross subject domains agree it is that no data is always better than wrong data. One must also think of the precious resources that would be spent on this data mining activity, the human hours, the time resources, the physical and infrastructural resources that are consumed in this process of keeping the data feed accurate and updated. I do notdeny the efficacy of systems where data mining is done manually. It is the digital researcher in me who would like to introduce to the readers a tool called 'Magic Words' https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Magic_words used in the Wikimedia universe to plug this problem and offer researchers fewer nightmares regarding the validity of the data.

Magic words offer a one stop solution towards resolving the issues of sourcing, securing and updating our data fields. With this one can be sure that the data fields do not become obsolete and might yield to erronoeus and in worse case contradictory interpretations. If there is a research report which seeks to compare page numbers of Kannada Wikipedia with another Wikimedia project. The traditional way to do this would be to aggregate the number of articles/redirects and publish the same. The reader ends up with a number that is static in nature. Does this mean that this number is permanent, the answer is an easy no because Kannada Wikipedia is by nature and definition a live project that will be changed and added to constantly.

An ordinary reader who does not have the bandwidth to follow the researcher's footsteps in finding out the total number of articles on Kannada Wikipedia will have to be content with the same static number provided even when he knows that the number is no longer accurate. By using the magic word {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} in a report that is written on Meta, the researcher allows the data to update automatically and changes the nature of data from static to dynamic. A classic example for the static data and the dynamic nature of the data using Magic words can be seen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias (dynamic data represented) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias (static data that needs to be updated manually). The change in the nature of presentation of data also implies that the facts and figures available are not just numbers but indicate factors that have driven the nature of data and influenced the formation of number of pages. Dynamic data allows us to ask interesting questions such as 'what factors contributed to the spike/decline in the number of articles' and learn from these numbers.

It becomes an essential responsibility for the researchers working with digital resources and in digital domains to broaden the scope of their research and also extend its validity to a longer course that would be difficult for quantitative research done with traditional resources and hosted on traditional platforms. Given below is a table of key magic words and its function.

Si. No	Magic Word	Used for	Used in Wikimedia Projects and Local Wiki Projects
1	{{NUMBEROFFILES}}	Number of uploaded files.	Metrics and Government Databases
2	{{NUMBEROFEDITS}}	Number of wiki edits.	Metrics and Student Evaluation
3	{{REVISIONDAY}}	Day edit was made	Metrics and Student Evaluation
4	{{REVISIONSIZE}}	The size (bytes of wikitext) of the current revision of this page	Metrics and Data inflow
5	{{NUMBEROFVIEWS}}	Number of page views.	Metrics and Website Traffic
6	{{REVISIONUSER}}	The username of the user who made the most recent edit to the page, or the current user when previewing an edit.	Metrics and Collaboratively written documents
7	{{NUMBEROFADMINS}}	Number of users in the sysop group.	Metrics and Focus group
8	{{PAGENAME}}	Full page title (including all subpage levels) without the namespace.	Metrics and Info websites

Magic words facility can be employed in many and diverse ways (as of now these are fully operational in the Wikimedia universe) if the Mediawiki software is used to build applications. For eg: Websites, evaluation programmes, databases and other applications.

Reference:

1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Indic_Languages#State_of_Indic_Language_Projects
2. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Magic_words

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/magic-words

M'lore: Wikipedia Workshop held for Konkani writers

praskrishna — 2014-04-14T10:36:25Z

A Wikipedia Workshop for Konkani writers writing in the Kannada script, was organised by All India Konkani Writers’ Organisation (AIKWO) in association with Wikipedia, on Apr 6, 2014, at Kalaangann, Mangalore.

Read the media release published in Daijiworld on April 6 here.

Dr U. B. Pavanaja (Programme Officer – Indian Languages, Access to Knowledge Program, The Centre for Internet and Society), conducted the workshop. Harriet Vidyasagar, Wikipedian volunteer, was also present.


Above: Dr. Pavanaja felicitated at the workshop. Picture by Daijiworld.com

This one-day hands-on workshop included presentations on Wikipedia in general, and Konkani Wikipedia in particular, and the participants were taught how to add and edit Konkani articles in the Kannada script in Wikipedia.

On behalf of Mandd Sobhann, Dr. Pratap Naik SJ handed-over three research works published by Mandd Sobhann – 1. Konkani Songs Among Mangalorean Catholics, 2. Anthology Of Konkani Literature In The Kannada Script and 3. Mandd Sobhann And Its Impact On Konkani Language And Literature – the representatives of Wikipedia – Dr. U. B. Pavanaja and Ms. Harriet Vidyasagar, to be updated in the Konkani Wikipedia. Shri Eric Ozario, Gurkar – Mandd Sobhann, Ms. Irine Rebello, Secretary – Mandd Sobhann and Dr. Edward Nazareth, General Secretary – AIKWO, were present on stage.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/daijiworld-april-6-2014-mangalore-wikipedia-workshop-held-for-konkani-writers

Loyola Faculty Enlightened About Open Edn Resources

praskrishna — 2014-07-02T04:50:48Z

“The tremendous changes in the digital technology have introduced the newage faculty to certain open and collaborative tools like Wiki, termed as open educational resources (OER),” Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) progarmme director T Vishnu Vardhan has said.

The article published in the New Indian Express on June 25, 2014 can be read here. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.

Adressing a two-day national workshop on ‘“Openness of Knowledge in Digital Era’ at Andhra Loyola College here Tuesday, Vishnu Vardhan stressed that within this context of digital era, openness and transparency gained newer significance, which creates a pre-condition for the transformation of society into knowledge society.

Pointing out that many of the websites were offering opportunity to access the information in almost all Indian languages and with everyone making use of Wikipedia as an OER tool, he explained the changes in the digital technology and also introduced the faculty to certain open and collaborative tools like Wikipedia.

Besides to giving a historical overview of the free and open source software movement, mass collaboration on the internet, details about Wikipedia authors and users, the participants were educated about using the simple technological tools like QR code to create increased and seamless access to knowledge using pervasive technologies like mobile phones.

Graduate and postgraduate teaching faculty from various streams partcipated in the workshop meant to discuss and learn new development in the fields of knowledge sharing and access in digital era.

CIS programme officer Rahimanuddin Shaik, jounalist Malladi Kameswara Rao, ALC principal Fr Kishore, college vice-principal Fr Anil kumaralso participated.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-new-indian-express-june-25-2014-loyola-faculty-enlightened-about-open-edn-resources

Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education Program at Guwahati University

nitika — 2013-07-26T11:43:37Z

The Assamese Wikipedia community has shown a rapid growth in the past six months from 20 active editors in January 2012 to 29 active editors in June 2012. The absolute numbers might seem low but in terms of percentages its an overwhelming increment of 45 per cent.

This increment can partly be credited to the photography and article contest, conducting workshops at various educational institutions and organic community growth.

Though Assamese Wikipedia is still a small project with about 1600 articles, the Assamese Wikipedians have the drive, willingness and zest to get more editors and multiply their community. Their enthusiasm and determination has led them to start with an Assamese Wikipedia Education Program. The program was launched on October 14, 2012 with 15 masters students (90 per cent of these are women students) under the guidance of Prof. Dulumoni Goswami, Head of the Department of Education, Guwahati University.

The day before the launch some of the Assamese Wikipedia editors including Jyoti and Durbhajyoti met to design and alter the Wikipedia Education Program for Assamese Wikipedia. It was decided that the entire program will be divided in four different stages which are as follows:

Stage 1: Introduction to Wikipedia + Introduction to Education Program + Assamese typing
Stage 2: Editing Assamese Wikipedia
Stage 3: Advanced editing including adding references, headers, TOC and wiki markups
Stage 4: Concluding the Education Program

In accordance with each of these stages there will be set of deliverables expected out of the students which are as follows:

Deliverable 1: Create Wikipedia user accounts and user pages
Deliverable 2: Submit a two-page typed article in Assamese
Deliverable 3: Students will select one article each and start editing their articles
Deliverable 4: Students will continue enhancing their articles and will start adding references, wiki markups and pictures, if desired.

Assamese Wikipedia Education Program initiated in Guwahati University

On Oct 14, 2012 at 11 a.m., the program was initiated with an introduction about Assamese Wikipedia and Wikipedia Education Program. Students were completely thrilled with the idea of them contributing to Wikipedia articles and created their usernames during the session. Since students were not familiar with Assamese typing a larger part of the session was dedicated to teach students on how to type in Assamese using Rudali. As a deliverable, students will be submitting two-page article typed in Assamese on paper before the first week of November. Thereafter, a second in-class session will be organized where students will be taught editing Assamese Wikipedia.

Students learn Assamese typing using typing tool Rudali.

All the students have willingly enrolled themselves in the program and have not been forced by the faculty members. Indeed, three students were not studying in Guwahati University but still wanted to be a part of the Assamese Education Program. A loud cheer and good wishes to the Assamese Wikipedia community!

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-program

Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Vijaya Vani)

praskrishna — 2013-09-05T06:45:12Z

Prajavani covered the Kannada Wikipedia workshop organised by the CIS-A2K team and the Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet., on August 12, 2013. A scanned version of the report is produced below.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/vijaya-vani-august-12-2013-krishnarajapet-wikipedia-workshop

Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Suvarna Times of Karnataka)

praskrishna — 2013-09-05T06:10:01Z

Suvarna Times of Karnataka covered the Kannada Wikipedia workshop organised by the CIS-A2K team and the Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet., on August 12, 2013. A scanned version of the report is produced below.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/suvarna-times-of-karnataka-august-12-2013-krishnarajapet-workshop

Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Prajavani)

praskrishna — 2013-09-05T05:50:24Z

Prajavani covered the Kannada Wikipedia workshop organised by the CIS-A2K team and the Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet., on August 12, 2013. A scanned version of the report is produced below.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/prajavani-august-12-2013-krishnarajapet-workshop

KP Rao feted

praskrishna — 2013-04-15T16:47:29Z

KP Rao who had designed fonts for Indian languages including Kannada and devised the first phonetic keyboard driver for Indian languages, was felicitated at a programme organised at Sahyadri College of Engineering and Management on Tuesday, reports DHNS from Mangalore.

This was published by Deccan Herald on April 10, 2013. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was quoted.

Speaking after the felicitation, he said the biggest challenge in those days was to display and print the characters of our languages.

The computers used and spoke only one language. The system of putting in Indic text phonetically was his invention and all keyboard softwares for Indian languages use this method.

Kannada wikipedia editor UB Pavanaja said Rao had created a mechanism for feeding Indic characters into computers. Later, he released a free software for Kannada called 'Sediyapu,' he said.

Below is a scanned version of the report published in the Deccan Herald:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/deccan-herald-april-10-2013-kp-rao-feted

Konknni Wikipedia Workshop

praskrishna — 2013-11-15T08:19:50Z

Dalgado Konknni Akademi in collaboration with Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge Programme is organsing a 2 day Wikipedia editing workshop at the Goa Central State Library on November 16 and 17, 2013 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

This workshop is free and open for anyone to attend. Please feel free to join hands in the campaign to promote free access to knowledge in one’s mother tongue – Konknni in Romi! This is a brilliant opportunity to showcase Konkani language in Roman script on a global platform such as Konknni Wikipedia!

Click to download the invite here. (PDF, 64 Kb)

Read more on Dalgado Konknni Akademi here
Read more on the Centre for Internet and Society here
Read more on Goa Central State Library here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/konknni-wikipedia-workshop-nov-16-17-2013

Konkani Wikipedia workshop at AIMIT, St Aloysius College

praskrishna — 2013-09-12T06:09:42Z

St. Aloysius College is organizing a Konkani Wikipedia workshop at AIMIT, St Aloysius College (Autonomous), Beeri, Mangalore on September 13, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja from the CIS-A2K team will participate in the event.

The workshop is aimed at people who want to edit Konkani Wikipedia using Kannada script. Konkani Wikipedia is in incubator at present. Konkani speaking people want to bring this out of incubator. Adding enough content to the Konkani Wikipedia will enable that. Those interested in adding content to Konkani Wikipedia will be trained in the workshop. This will be a full day event.

Click to read about St.Aloysius Institute of Management

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/konkani-wiki-workshop-aimit-september-13-2013

Konkani Wikipedia next?

praskrishna — 2013-08-01T08:32:37Z

A quarter of the world’s Konkani speakers live in Goa. Which is why it should cheer us up to know that a Konkani Wikipedia is being shaped up. But unless more and more of us contribute, the project might never go online.

This article by Diana Fernandes was published in OHeraldO, the largest circulated English daily in Goa, on July 27, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

Konkani has never had its own Wikipedia site like Hindi (hi.wikipedia.org) or Sanskrit (sn.wikipedia.org). So the good news is that efforts are underway since 2006, the bad news is it hasn’t made any progress in the last seven years.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is however hoping to change this. As part of the project being funded by the Wikipedia Foundation, San Francisco, CIS through their Access to Knowledge (A2K) programme plan to bring to life a full fledged Konkani Wikipedia site with the Devanagari script.

But Vishnu Vardhan, programme director, is quick to add, "This is no way trying to resolve the script issue. We are simply creating a place where people from the Konkani speaking community can contribute as well as read Konkani online."

Considering the complexity of the language, which is also written in Kannada, Malayalam and Perso Arabic, Konkani has many obstacles to over come before this project reaches fruition.

A balanced and practical approach of developing the content on the Konkani Wikipedia will be focused upon, say the organisers. For this, the A2K will look at generating content and build a community around the official Konkani script — Devanagari. Though they will also accept any other script, which will either be translated into the Devanagari script or remain as it is.

Speaking about the workshop, Vardhan says Goa was the perfect launch pad for the project. Among the 24 lakh Konkani speaking population around the world, Goa accounts for 6 lakh, the highest.

The CIS plans to have free lectures around the state to any interested group of people to spread the news of contributing articles related to famous personality, place, a cultural aspect, religion, history or sociology. But then comes the task of which script do people contribute in.

The current incubator has 52 Devanagari, 32 Romi and 2 Kannada articles. The project received its maximum number of edits in 2007 08 and has been reducing over the subsequent years.

The aim of the project is to get more articles. "Presently, we are telling people to simply contribute articles, whether in Devanagari or Romi. But since Devanagari is the state approved script, it is preferred in that script."

Vardhan believes that removing it from the incubation stage and having a live Wikipedia site will be a start. But for which he says, a community is necessary.

"Wikipedia is a community website and without one, there would be no exchange of information," he says. At present, the incubator has 86 articles but the aim is to increase this number with as many articles as possible.

Once armed with enough articles to go live, Vardhan says, the engineering department at Wikipedia can be approached about creating a multiple script converter that converts any of the scripts into any other desired one. The problem however is that there isn’t enough motivation and interest in the language itself.

"Only if the team at Wikipedia (US) sees the demand for different scripts in Konkani will they consider the multiple script converters," says Vardhan.

A similar challenge was faced by other wikis, like the Kashmiri Wikipedia, which used Pashto, Sharada and Devanagari scripts. Punjabi had the Gurmukhi script used in India and the Shahmukhi script that’s used in Pakistan. Solutions to them included an automatic converter, multiple writing system and creating separate wikis for each script.

CIS has also organised a Kannada workshop in Udupi for a Kannada Wikipedia. The other languages that the Wikipedia Foundation has asked them to work on are Telugu, Odia, and Bengali.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/oheraldo-july-27-2013-diana-fernandes-konkani-wikipedia-next

Konkani Wikipedia makes headway

praskrishna — 2013-09-17T06:07:54Z

The first floor of the Krishnadas Central Library has been bustling with activity for the last four days. A closer look reveals the concentration, thought and precision that is put into each letter of the Devnagri script Konkani they type. Still further and you realise it’s a Wikipedia site that final year MA Konkani students of Goa University are busy with.

This article by Diana Fernandes was published in OHeraldO on August 24, 2013. Nitika Tandon is quoted.

A follow up to the Konkani Wikipedia workshop that was held earlier last month at St. Xavier’s College, Mapusa and King’s school, Margao, the Centre for Internet and Society ( CIS) in its Access to Knowledge ( A2K) initiative were back to try and bring to life a seven year incubation Konkani Wikipedia page.

The final year MA Konkani students were busy typing away at their screen as I went to pay them a visit. Nitika Tandon, Goa in- charge from the CIS- A2K team says Goan students have shown the most interest so far. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar, Head of Department at Goa University says she’s thrilled for the project as it will not only help students update and reach out to other writers but also help in popularising Goa’s mother tongue.

“ So far there was nothing in Konkani on Wikipedia. There are so many articles about Goa in English but not in Konkani. Those who do not know only to read or develop their Konkani skills can probably use this.

Also for the students it’s an opportunity for them to discuss their thoughts with other editors,” says Tadkodkar.

The last time she was in the state, Tandon says people were more inclined to hear of the English Wikipedia rather than Konkani, but sees this workshop as a definite success story.

Students were visibly interested in not only writing about Goa but to change the way people look at Goa. “ Goa is only seen as beaches, parties and cheap liquor. There is so much more. Like Goa’s unique cuisine or its famous personalities like D D Kosambi,” says Supriya.

“ People say that Konkani will die in another 20 – 25 years. I see this as an opportunity to save it,” says another student John.

Articles written by the students will be assessed by Madhavi Sardesai, editor of Jaan, a Konkani literary journal, after which students will be asked to make the corrections online.

A total of 38 students attended over the span of two days. Each session comprised eight hours of training a day. Topics discussed during the workshop included basics of Wikipedia and the status of Konkani Wikipedia as well as typing in Devnagri script, the sort of articles that are required for the site and using references other than Facebook and how to site them in the article.

“ Forty- two pages of content were generated in two days and have already been put up on the site. The students love it. Students who came in the first batch wanted to join the second one simply because they want to write. Though they don’t get credit for this workshop as part of the syllabus students are indeed interested,” says Tandon.

Though a total of 140 articles on topics ranging from Goa’s heritage, culture, traditions and famous personalities have been uploaded, she says it requires at least five contributors to add to the existing database regularly.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/epaperoheraldo-august-24-2013-diana-fernandes-konkani-wikipedia-makes-headway

Konkani Wikipedia in the making

praskrishna — 2013-09-30T09:11:09Z

Process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopaedia will be completed in six months’ time.

This article by Prakash Kamat was published in the Hindu on September 29, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

The Goa University has re-launched a four-volume Konkani Vishwakosh (Konkani encyclopaedia) and announced its plan to upload the same on Wikipedia so as to build the Konkani Wikipedia.

The project is seen as a major stride in Konkani learning, research and production of books. The project, which will involve 42 students of the Konkani Department of Goa University including four designated as Ambassadors of Konkani, will turn students into producers of knowledge rather than mere consumers of knowledge. The University has signed a three-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building up the Konkani Wikipedia.

“Wikipedia is a global phenomenon and a platform to bring people together for making creative activities possible, which in fact, has challenged the monopoly of publishers and created a movement in order to put together knowledge, further making it accessible to public,” said Satish Shetye, Vice-Chancellor of Goa University, speaking at the launch of the project.

Narrating how the project began, Registrar of Goa University V. P. Kamat explained that Mr. Satish Shetye, who took over as Vice-Chancellor over a year ago, happened to notice the huge piles of hardbound volumes of the Konkani encyclopaedia stacked in the Goa University library and wished to digitise the manuscripts and re-launch the encyclopaedia. The idea to upload the whole content on Wikipedia was thus born.

The work for the Konkani encyclopaedia project was commissioned during the tenure of the first Vice-Chancellor B. Sheik Ali. The project was seen as a historical step to document the identity of the State and its people and the history of Goa for posterity. University insiders, however, said that no serious efforts were made to take the invaluable research work undertaken beyond the University. Secondly, because of the lack of human resource and funds, no initiative was taken so far to update these volumes.

Initiative

Prof. Shetye took a proactive initiative and tied up with Access to Knowledge Programme of the CIS. The four volumes of the 3,632 page Konkani encyclopaedia are being released under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 to support the movement of open knowledge and open access.

Programme Director at CIS’s Access to Knowledge Programme Vishnu Vardhan said that the process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopa edia on Wikipedia would be completed in six months’ time. He also stressed on the need to rewrite some of the articles in the encyclopaedia so as to make the content more relevant.

Students of the University involved in digitisation work and rewriting the content see this as an opportunity to learn about digitisation and to write Konkani of global standard, said Madhavi Sardesai, Professor, Department of Konkani at the University. Mr. Vardhan also disclosed plans for a relevant training programme specially co-designed by the CIS as well as the University to put up the content on Wikipedia.

He said that the Goa University is the first in the country to re-license copyright of its content and hailed the initiative towards open knowledge. Though the MoU signed last month would be initially valid for three years, Mr. Vardhan is optimistic that it would go beyond the launch of the Vishwakosh volumes.

Mr. Halarnkar, associated with the Konkani literary movement, who was present at the launch as the editor of the original volumes, welcomed the process of digitisation as relevant, historical and need of the hour. However, he stressed on supervision over the accuracy and accountability while digitising original data and regular updating of the content in the context of the Konkani language, its history and movement.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-september-29-2013-prakash-kamat-konkani-wikipedia-in-the-making

Konkani Wikipedia Goes Live After 'Nine Years' of Incubation

subha — 2016-06-18T18:15:05Z

Konkani Wikipedia is the second Wikimedia project after Odia Wikisource that has gone live out of incubation. The project stayed in the incubation for nine long years and the community has gone through a long debate to have a Wikipedia of their own. Here is a blog highlighting three Konkani Wikimedians and an advocate of the Wikipedia movement whose efforts finally paid off.

Read the original blog entry published on Wikimedia Blog on July 15, 2015 here.

The Goan Konkani Wikipedia (available at gom.wikipedia.org) has gone live after spending nine long years in incubation.

An Indo-Aryan language, of the Indo-European family of languages, Konkani is the official language of Goa. It is a minority language in other Indian states, such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, northern Kerala, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu. It is spoken by about 7.4 million people.

Konkani can be written in five different scripts: Devanagari—officially used by the Government of Goa—as well as Latin (locally known as Romi Konkani), Kannada, Malayalam, and Persian. Of these, the Goan Antruz dialect of the language, in the Devanagari script, is considered standard by the Indian constitution.

The Konkani Wikipedia has many heroes, as we see them. Melissa Simoes and Darshan Kandolkar are two of the many long-term contributors who joined during the Konkani Wikipedia @ Goa University program and are still active even after the program formally concluded. Darshan is an assistant professor at the Government College Pernem in Goa. His professor at Goa University, Dr. Madhavi Sardesai—who passed away last year—played a vital role in inspiring him to go for higher studies in Konkani. Darshan realized that there is a lot to be written in Konkani when he was introduced to Wikipedia, and after that, he became dedicated to contributing to the project.

“I would like to bring more students as contributors to our Konkani Wikipedia,” Darshan says. “My aim is to start with my students at Government College Pernem. Being an alumnus of Goa University, I also want my juniors there to join our community and enrich Konkani Wikipedia.”

“I have a dream to start a project for the freedom fighters of Goa and involve a diverse set of people, from students to journalists and columnists. I also want to build partnership with educational institutions so we could engage with the students for a longer run and the existing Konkani community could mentor them,” he continues.

“Being a new Wikipedia project, Konkani Wikipedia needs more quality measures and the articles have to grow to good quality articles with more images and templates, I want to take it to the level of English Wikipedia with both quantitative and qualitative growth in articles!”

The Konkani Wikimedia community has been using social media actively to promote the Konkani Wikipedia project, and to celebrate the successes of its contributors. After Melissa became the top contributor to the project, her fellow editor Luis Gomes congratulated her. That brought Melissa into the spotlight, gaining the attention of editors from the global Wikimedia community. The community is continuing a tradition to rewarding the most prolific contributor of each month as the “Wikipedian of the Month”.

Melissa was introduced to the Wikipedia program at her university where the target for each participating student was to write one article each about a village in Goa. “I wrote my article just for the sake of the marks, but never bothered to think about why I am writing it. After the program was over, I became inactive on Wikipedia.

“After some time, I met Father [Luis Gomes] in parish and then Darshan and Father inspired me to resume editing. Then, it became an addiction and I never stopped even for a day. I would come back from work and sit in front of my computer.

“Now, I am a teacher, and my fellow teachers are mostly women. I would like to introduce the Goan Konkani Wikipedia to them so they could also contribute to Wikipedia,” Melissa says.

As Konkani Wikipedia went live, long term Wikimedian Fredrick Noronha, an early advocate of Konkani Wikipedia, said, “It is a wonderful feeling to see the Goan Konkani Wikipedia live. I would like to congratulate all who have been involved in some or the other way with the making of Konkani Wikipedia live from the days of its inception and incubation.

“I am not a great contributor or even a language expert. I come from a content background and found my interest in Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Creative Commons long ago. But this helped me to associate myself in some way with the Konkani Wikipedia incubator. I am happy that CIS-A2K chipped in to help build a community and help it grow in collaboration with the Goa University.

“Students of the Konkani department in the university are the real heroes to take this effort forward by filling the Wikipedia incubator with more editing activity to which the institutional backing acted as catalyst,” he added.

Fredrick feels there are major challenges that the community now has to start taking measures for: “The macrolanguage is written in multiple scripts. Out of five of the scripts three—Devanagari, Romi/Latin and Kannada—are actively used in printing and publication currently. People using all the scripts should be equally participating in a movement like Wikipedia to take their languages to other native speakers using Wikipedia as a digital tool.

“The second challenge is with the contributors. Goa, being home to majority of the Konkani language speakers, has English education from the primary level. This means many have a great level of technical ability. The technical contributor community here would be of great use to Konkani Wikipedia if tapped,” he adds.

“The technical contributors are eager to contribute but have not been approached in a manner that would interest them. Similarly the Konkani authors who are helping propagate the language to masses have sadly no or very little clue about Wikipedia’s existence in Konkani. This disparity is stopping a massive flow of local encyclopedic content to the Konkani Wikipedia. Unless we tap into the technological and the linguistic groups it will be only a tip of the iceberg.”

Fredrick explains that the the current Konkani Wikipedia community is primarily made up of students of Goa University. “This is both good and bad,” he says. “Having young and enthusiastic students as Wikipedia editors is helping the project to leap forward, which might not have happened if the faculty were targeted instead. There is, however, a great need for diversification.

“The approach to bring in authors in the 60–70 years age group will vary from the approach to bring in, for example, technical people. Our outreach strategies should ultimately fulfill both the literary and technological contributors, so that their work can help us to both grow content and to solve the problem of the multiple scripts, respectively,” Fredrick adds.

The Konkani Wikipedia community is organizing a public seminar on July 18 at Goa University to celebrate the launch of the Konkani Wikipedia and to pay tribute to Dr. Madhavi Sardesai, who always dreamed of the Konkani Wikipedia getting out of incubation.

Video


Wikimedian Darshan Kandolkar shares his experience of contributing to Konkani Wikipedia. Video in Konkani. Video by Wikimedia India, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-wikipedia-goes-live

Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months

praskrishna — 2013-09-27T11:53:51Z

Piles of the thick four volumes of Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia waiting to be picked up by users at the Goa University (GU) will now attain a modern avatar.

The article was published in the Times of India on September 27, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

The volumes, work on which was first started by renowned Goan writer and academician late Manoharrai Sardessai at GU, will not only be available in digitized format, but will form the base for a Konkani Wikipedia.

Goa University has become the first varsity in the country to enter into a creative commons licence that will allow data produced and copyrighted by an Indian university available to internet users and open to modification, making GU a champion of sorts of free knowledge. The Konkani Wikipedia is expected to be ready for use within six months, officials said.

The university has signed a three-year memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Programme, which represents Wikipedia in India, for the Konkani Wikipedia project.

"Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help with the project for which training will be provided. Information in the Konkani vishwakosh will also be updated as per the current developments," Vishnu Vardhan of the centre said.

The Wikipedia is the fourth most used property on the internet after Google, Facebook and Yahoo, which acts as an internet based encyclopedia where any of the users can upload new information or update or modify an existing chapter. The Konkani Wikipedia too will offer similar privileges to users and GU's Konkani department and the centre will oversee the process from the university campus.

"The Konkani vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia," GU vice-chancellor Satish Shetye said.

Shetye said that GU is glad to associate with Wikipedia which has become a global phenomenon and broken the monopoly of publishers and converted distribution of knowledge into a democratic process.

"At present, it takes time for a page with information in a regional language to download because they are usually found in the form of scanned pages, which are accessible as images and not text. The Konkani Wikipedia will make the text accessible as is the case of any English text on the internet," GU registrar Vijayendra Kamat said. tnn

The Konkani vishwakosh was created over a period of 14 years.

Edited by late Manoharrai Sardessai and later Tanaji Halarnkar. GU staffers Ranjan Naik, Kalpana Naik, Kanchan Mordekar, Surekha Naik, Mukesh Thali and Shailendra Mehta contributed to the compilation process.

Contains four large volumes of 3,632 of total pages.

Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia encompasses world information in a nutshell with special emphasis on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc.

Wikipedia is available in 20 Indian languages including Telugu, Assamese, Marathi, but not in Konkani so far.

Students, professors and anyone interested in contributing to the project can do so by enrolling online at bit.ly/konkanivishwakosh before October 5.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-september-27-2013-konkani-wikipedia-from-goa-university-in-six-months