The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 151 to 165.
Tulu takes a major Wiki leap, all thanks to a dedicated team
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/indian-express-august-21-2016-akram-mohammed-tulu-takes-a-major-wiki-leap-all-thanks-to-a-dedicated-team
<b>Tulu is one of the five Dravidian languages but it has the least number of speakers. Though it has a script, lack of usage has made it almost obsolete, forcing Tulu writers to write in Kannada. This has, however, benefited Tulu today, allowing it to boast of its own Wikipedia</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Akram Mohammed was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/Tulu-takes-a-major-Wiki-leap-all-thanks-to-a-dedicated-team/2016/08/21/article3589672.ece">published in the Indian Express</a> on August 21, 2016. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was quoted. Also mirrored in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.nyoooz.com/bengaluru/578726/tulu-takes-a-major-wiki-leap-all-thanks-to-a-dedicated-team">Nyooz</a> on August 22, 2016.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Anyone who proposes a Wikipedia in a new language knows the labour between the proposal stage and the period it goes live. The long phase usually erodes the enthusiasm and in many cases, the proposal never passes the incubation period. In the case of Tulu Wikipedia, there were a few determined to ensure it saw the light of the day.<br /><br />Like Vasanth CN, who had rallied for the Wikipedia page since it was first proposed in 2008. A native of Dharmasthala, the language enthusiast detailed how tcy.wikipedia.org came into being. “When it was first proposed in 2008, there were six people behind it,” he recalled. After a while, the Board of Trustees and Language Committee of Wikipedia accepted the proposal.<br /><br />Then came the incubation period, stretching over eight years, where enthusiasm ebbed and swelled among the parties working for a Tulu Wikipedia page. “If you see the Wikipedia homepage, you see a lot of system messages. Our task was to translate these system messages first. By 2011-12, we had succeeded in generating about 120 articles related to the Tulu language and the region in which it is spoken,” he said.The tricky part was to get the page active. It needed volunteers and they were hard to come by. “For a Wikipedia page to become live, we required at least 600 articles. Moreover, we also required at least five active volunteers who could contribute content or edit existing pages” he said.<br /><br />It took several workshops at different venues to get the numbers.<br /><br />Vasanth told Express that the motivation behind the project was to ensure a recognition for the language and to help it evolve. “It is important to have a knowledge base in the local language,” he said. At present, the page has over 780 articles. “If there is encouragement from government agencies such as the Tulu Academy, we can easily increase the content,” he said. He added that further support was required to upload works of ancient and modern Tulu literature, in online avenues such as wikisource.<br /><br />U B Pavanaja from Centre for Internet and Society, said that efforts picked up in 2014 to make the page live. Commenting on the significance of the language, he said that Tulu had a rich heritage. Several religious books and works of literature had been translated to Tulu during the late 18th century, which included the Bible. In coastal districts, Tulu can be chosen as an optional subject today, he said.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/indian-express-august-21-2016-akram-mohammed-tulu-takes-a-major-wiki-leap-all-thanks-to-a-dedicated-team'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/indian-express-august-21-2016-akram-mohammed-tulu-takes-a-major-wiki-leap-all-thanks-to-a-dedicated-team</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeTulu Wikipedia2016-08-22T16:38:47ZNews ItemFocus on India—WikiConference produces new apps; state government adopts free licenses
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-signpost-august-18-2016-pete-forsyth-and-tony-focus-on-india
<b>WikiConference India and its productive hackathon
</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second <a class="extiw" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016" title="meta:WikiConference India 2016">WikiConference India</a>, held August 5–7 in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh, drew hundreds of new and experienced members from 20 language communities of various Wikimedia projects from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. This event was <a class="text external" href="https://opensource.com/life/16/8/wikipedia-conference-india-2016" rel="nofollow">more thematic</a> than the first WikiConference India (held in 2011), with numerous presentations, panel discussions and workshops on the gender gap, Wikipedia in education, Mediawiki, and state of the movement in India. The event was organized by the Community of Wikimedians in India, supported by <a class="extiw" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India" title="m:Wikimedia India">Wikimedia India</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_for_Internet_and_Society_%28India%29" title="Centre for Internet and Society (India)">Centre for Internet and Society</a>, and <a class="extiw" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Community_of_Wikimedians_in_India/WikiConference_India_2016" title="meta:Grants:PEG/Community of Wikimedians in India/WikiConference India 2016">funded by the Wikimedia Foundation</a>. The newly formed user group <a class="extiw" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians" title="m:Punjabi Wikimedians">Punjabi Wikimedians</a> hosted the event. WikiConference India's main goal was to build community and increase participation among Wikimedians in India. Interest in the event was strong: 452 Wikimedians from more than six countries applied for ~100 scholarships. Wikipedia's well known gender gap was evident: only 55 scholarship applicants were women, but a strong focus on diversity resulted in ~25% of scholarship recipients going to women, and the inclusion of speakers of ~20 languages. In all, about 250 people attended the conference. Several Foundation staff spoke at the event, including executive director Katherine Maher, Asaf Bartov, and Tighe Flanagan.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A highlight of the conference was the hackathon track, which spanned all three days of the conference. It proved highly productive, yielding seven apps that are expected to help Wikimedians in a variety of ways. I spoke with Santosh Shingare (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cherishsantosh" title="User:Cherishsantosh">Cherishsantosh</a>), the Bangalore-based Wikimedian who organized the hackathon. Santosh had previously served as an organizer of the 2011 WikiConference, and has run hackathons annually since then. Santosh's primary motivation for holding such events is learning; he spoke of limited opportunities to learn about new areas of technology beyond his core skills in WebRTC and Android. He enjoys collaborating with other Wikimedians and sharing technical skills. This event was his first with an international draw, and he looks forward to opportunities to collaborate beyond India's borders in the future.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As Santosh outlined in <a class="extiw" href="https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2016-August/007857.html" title="mailarchive:wikimania-l/2016-August/007857.html">a message to the Wikimania email list</a>, the hackathon's 35 participants made substantial progress with the following projects:</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>WikiSpeak with native language (web and Android): Speaking the text of Wikipedia articles</li>
<li>Edit Tamil Wiktionary (Android)</li>
<li>Audio file upload to Wikidata (Android): Assists users in uploading small files that demonstrate the pronunciation of lexical items</li>
<li>A layer that shows local Wikipedia articles on a Google Map</li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition" title="Optical character recognition">Optical character recognition</a> for Hindi and Malayalam</li>
<li>Communication platform [WebRTC] (Web Application): Santosh wrote this app himself; hackathon participants used it to communicate</li>
<li>Notifications: browser notifications for Wikipedia functions such as recent changes</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Santosh highlights that the projects grew out of advance communication. To identify problems and generate ideas, the hackathon organizing team posted a survey ahead of the event. Requests from various language communities, including Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi, and Malayalam, drove several of the projects. The software is all freely licensed, and there are no plans to generate revenue.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Santosh is not a prolific Wikipedia writer or editor, but rather sees value in his ability to communicate among Wikimedians who seek features from various language communities, including his native Marathi and other Indic languages in which he has varying degrees of fluency.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He plans to update the Wikimedia community shortly with further details on each of the seven projects. He is already planning the next of India's annual hackathons. Hackathon organizers worldwide might be interested in learning more about Indian Wikimedians' efforts, and Wikimedians around the world can expect to benefit from their projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The conference generated <a class="extiw" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016/Press" title="meta:WikiConference India 2016/Press">a number of media reports</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth" title="User:Peteforsyth">P</a></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Indian_state_of_Tamil_Nadu_adopts_Creative_Commons_license">Indian state of Tamil Nadu adopts Creative Commons license</span></h3>
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<div class="floatnone"><a class="image" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India_TN.svg"><img alt="India TN.svg" height="322" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/India_TN.svg/275px-India_TN.svg.png" width="275" /></a></div>
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<div>The state of Tamil Nadu on the subcontinent</div>
</div>
<div class="plainlinks" style="padding-left: 5em; text-align: justify; ">
<p>Last week brought a rare piece of good news in the world's uncertain progress towards the widespread free licensing of information on the Internet. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ravidreams" title="User:Ravidreams">Ravidreams</a> announced on the <a class="extiw" href="https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2016-August/012649.html" title="mailarchive:wikimediaindia-l/2016-August/012649.html">Wikimedia India mailing list</a> that the government of one of India's largest and most populous states—<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Nadu" title="Tamil Nadu">Tamil Nadu</a>—has issued an <a class="extiw" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GoTN_Tamil_Development_Departments_order_on_creative_commons_cc_by_sa.pdf" title="commons:File:GoTN Tamil Development Departments order on creative commons cc by sa.pdf">instruction</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_University" title="Tamil University">Tamil University</a> and "all other government departments and institutions to release all their publications, archives and collections under Creative Commons by Share-Alike license".</p>
<p>The move comes one year after the <a class="text external" href="https://ta.wikipedia.org/s/4o7x">collaboration</a> between the Global Tamil Wikimedia Community and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Virtual_Academy" title="Tamil Virtual Academy">Tamil Virtual Academy</a>, an independent institution set up by the state government in 2001 to provide online resources for Tamil-language communities around the world. TVA and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language" title="Tamil language">Tamil-language</a> Wikimedia community collaborated to persuade the government to make the order. Wikimedia India (one of three <a class="text external" href="https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/India" rel="nofollow">Creative Commons affiliates</a> in the country) served as an institutional partner, signing the initial agreement on behalf of the Indian Wikimedia community, and funding a Wikimedian in Residence at TVA.</p>
<p>Ravi, who also serves on the TVA committee for outreach, told the <i>Signpost</i> that the TVA is very keen to share its collection of encyclopedic resources with Tamil Wikimedia projects. The community contributed strategic knowledge of free-content licensing, providing precedents for free content release by other governments in India and other countries, and helped in the drafting of the actual order. "But it takes a lot of time, effort, high-profile connections to change how government institutions work", he said.</p>
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<div style="float: right; padding-left: 20px; text-align: justify; ">
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<div class="floatnone"><a class="image" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tamil_1949.jpg"><img alt="Tamil 1949.jpg" height="369" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Tamil_1949.jpg/275px-Tamil_1949.jpg" width="275" /></a></div>
</div>
<div>An example of the distinctive Tamil script</div>
</div>
<div class="plainlinks" style="padding-left: 5em; text-align: justify; ">
<table class="cquote">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: left; ">“</td>
<td>Almost 99% of the time it's about the right officer/minister who cares for our mission being in charge of the right department at the right time. It's very hard to bring change through a bottom-up approach. These precedents help when someone at the top gets interested in changing things. So, any community that expects to influence public policy should be prepared to do a lot of groundwork.</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">”</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Tamil-language Wikipedian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Thamizhpparithi_Maari" title="User:Thamizhpparithi Maari">Thamizhpparithi Maari</a> serves as Assistant Director, TVA and state coordinator of its computing outreach unit, which the government is funding to encourage students in the state to use open-source media and software; this program includes the development of mobile apps and the running of contests to enhance students' computing skills. He described to the <i>Signpost</i> the elaborate process of finally gaining legal and administrative approval for the CC-by-SA release order. Thamizhpparithi has already started a process of digitising books from the universities to share with the Tamil wiki community, involving between 400,000 and 500,000 pages in some 200 books, using Google <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition" title="Optical character recognition">optical character recognition</a> (OCR).</p>
<p>"This is just the beginning; we expect millions of pages to be uploaded to <a class="extiw" href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/ta:%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%B1%E0%AF%8D_%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D" title="wikisource:ta:முதற் பக்கம்">Tamil Wikisource</a>", Ravi said. Most of the content that will become available for uploading is in Tamil, although some will be in English and other Indian languages; this will present significant opportunities for the Tamil Wikimedia community.</p>
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<div style="float: right; padding-left: 20px; text-align: justify; ">
<div class="center">
<div class="floatnone"><a class="image" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Valvai_Historical_Archives_Exhibition_-_Toronto_2011_-_Sivajanapotham.jpg"><img alt="Valvai Historical Archives Exhibition - Toronto 2011 - Sivajanapotham.jpg" height="205" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/Valvai_Historical_Archives_Exhibition_-_Toronto_2011_-_Sivajanapotham.jpg/275px-Valvai_Historical_Archives_Exhibition_-_Toronto_2011_-_Sivajanapotham.jpg" width="275" /></a></div>
</div>
<div>A rare Tamil-language book in an archival exhibition</div>
</div>
<div class="plainlinks" style="padding-left: 5em; text-align: justify; ">
<p>There are about 70 million native speakers of Tamil, and another eight million second-language speakers. It is an official language in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka (with which the state shares a maritime border), and Singapore, and is also used in Malaysia and the African island of Mauritius. The language, written in a distinctive curvilinear script, has a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_literature" title="Tamil literature">rich literature</a> of poetry reaching back thousands of years, and of novels over the past few centuries; this is attested by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Tamil_literature" title="Category:Tamil literature">a related category</a> on the English Wikipedia that is already of impressive size.</p>
<p>The Open Policy Network, a project of Creative Commons, published <a class="text external" href="http://www.shareable.net/blog/open-policy-network-to-give-governments-a-license-to-share" rel="nofollow">an overview of the value of this kind of work</a> in 2014; the Network advocates for governments around the world to adopt free content licenses. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tony1" title="User:Tony1">T</a></p>
<h3><span class="mw-headline" id="In_brief">In brief</span></h3>
<ul>
<li><b>Mobile app provides offline access to 8,000 medical articles in Arabic, Chinese, Persian, and Spanish</b>: The apps, which supplement a popular English language app, were <a class="text external" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/OfflineMed.pdf">announced</a> by the WikiProject Med Foundation and Wikimedia Switzerland. More language editions are planned.</li>
<li><b>Wikimedia Foundation appoints five volunteers to its Board Governance Committee:</b> Newly appointed trustee Nataliia Tymkiv <a class="text external" href="https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-August/084974.html">announced</a> the selection of the advisory group. Board governance issues have been the subject of much discussion since the tumultuous events at the WMF over the last year. The four members of the BGC are Tymkiv (chair), Kelly Battles, Christophe Henner, and Dariusz Jemielniak.</li>
<li><b>WikiConference North America</b> will take place October 7–10, 2016 in San Diego. <a class="text external" href="https://wikiconference.org/wiki/2016/Scholarships" rel="nofollow">Scholarship applications</a> are open until August 23; <a class="text external" href="https://wikiconference.org/wiki/Submissions" rel="nofollow">conference submissions</a> until August 31.</li>
<li><b><a class="extiw" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConvention_francophone/2016" title="m:WikiConvention francophone/2016">WikiConvention Francophone</a></b> will take place in Paris August 19–21.</li>
<li><b>New help page takes aim at common newbie obstacle:</b> Many articles carry banners, to flag problems with the articles. New contributors often lack an understanding of how to go about removing the banners, if they address the underlying issues. In recent months, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fuhghettaboutit" title="User:Fuhghettaboutit">Fuhghettaboutit</a> created a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Maintenance_template_removal" title="Help:Maintenance template removal">help page to explain the process</a>, and advocated for linking to the page from the templates. The help page now gets <a class="text external" href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2016-06-15&end=2016-08-11&pages=Help:Maintenance_template_removal">several thousand views per day</a>, suggesting that it is filling a significant gap.</li>
<li><b>Machine-assisted translation of Wikipedia articles</b>, which has increased with the introduction of the Wikimedia Foundation's Content Translation Tool (covered by the <i>Signpost</i> in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-06-24/Op-ed" title="Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-06-24/Op-ed">June 2015 op-ed</a>, in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-06-05/News_and_notes" title="Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-06-05/News and notes">June 2016</a>, and in <a class="text external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&profile=default&search=%22content+translation%22+prefix%3AWikipedia%3AWikipedia+Signpost%2F201&searchToken=5yn9eoje6p9s87ndybhp1ci6l">various other pieces</a>), has sparked a controversy in recent weeks. See here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/CXT" title="Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT">Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT</a>.</li>
<li><b>Wikidata RfC on defining data quality underway:</b> <a class="extiw" href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User:Alessandro_Piscopo">Alessandro Piscopo</a>, a guest of Wikimedia Germany, asserts that: "to achieve high quality, it is important to define first what data quality is on this knowledge base." Join the discussion: <a class="extiw">Wikidata:Requests for comment/Data quality framework for Wikidata</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth" title="User:Peteforsyth">P</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-08-18/News_and_notes">Read the original here</a></p>
<ul>
</ul>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-signpost-august-18-2016-pete-forsyth-and-tony-focus-on-india'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-signpost-august-18-2016-pete-forsyth-and-tony-focus-on-india</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-08-22T03:15:22ZNews ItemTools orientation session for Telugu Wikimedians of Hyderabad
https://cis-india.org/openness/events/tools-orientation-session-for-telugu-wikimedians-of-hyderabad
<b>A tools orientation session is being organised on July 10 at Hyderabad during the regular monthly meetup. Telugu Wikimedians who would be interested to learn about advanced editing tools like citation templates and Twinkle are welcome to join.</b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/events/tools-orientation-session-for-telugu-wikimedians-of-hyderabad'>https://cis-india.org/openness/events/tools-orientation-session-for-telugu-wikimedians-of-hyderabad</a>
</p>
No publisherPavan Santhosh S.CIS-A2KWikipediaTelugu WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-08-17T14:35:54ZEventTraining-the-trainer programme and Mediawiki training at Pune
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/training-the-trainer-programme-and-mediawiki-training-at-pune
<b>A two-day long train-the-trainer and Mediawiki training programme was organised during May 28-29 in Pune to better capacity of Wikimedians both technically, and outreach and community building.
</b>
<p>The participants were trained about planning, organising and reporting
for outreach programmes, public speaking, advanced editing skills and
and the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants">Wikimedia grants</a>
structure. Similarly for the Mediawiki training, the major topics
covered in the Mediawiki training sessions were Six Wikimedians; bug
triage, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bots">bots</a>, <a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Extensions">Mediawiki extensions</a> and scripts, and <a href="https://www.wikidata.org/">Wikidata</a>. The sessions were discussed and planned in the <a href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%BE:%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%A1%E0%A5%80/%E0%A4%87%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%B0_%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BE#.E0.A4.AE.E0.A5.87.E0.A4.A1.E0.A5.80.E0.A4.AF.E0.A4.BE.E0.A4.B5.E0.A4.BF.E0.A4.95.E0.A5.80_.E0.A4.86.E0.A4.A3.E0.A4.BF_.E0.A4.9F.E0.A5.8D.E0.A4.B0.E0.A5.87.E0.A4.A8_.E0.A4.A6_.E0.A4.9F.E0.A5.8D.E0.A4.B0.E0.A5.87.E0.A4.A8.E0.A4.B0_.E0.A4.B8.E0.A5.8D.E0.A4.A5.E0.A4.BE.E0.A4.A8.E0.A4.BF.E0.A4.95_.E0.A4.AA.E0.A5.8D.E0.A4.B0.E0.A4.B6.E0.A4.BF.E0.A4.95.E0.A5.8D.E0.A4.B7.E0.A4.A3_.E0.A4.95.E0.A4.BE.E0.A4.B0.E0.A5.8D.E0.A4.AF.E0.A4.95.E0.A5.8D.E0.A4.B0.E0.A4.AE">Marathi Wikipedia Village Pump </a>in advance. Rahmanuddin Shaik and I facilitated the individual sessions. Thanks to Sanket Oswal, Treasurer, <a href="http://wiki.wikimedia.in/">Wikimedia India</a> who shared about the chapter’s ongoing activities, especially the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Earth_2016_in_India">Wiki Loves Earth</a> project. The community members from Nashik shared about their plans for a meetup in the city of Nashik in June.</p>
<a href="http://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SantoshiWiki">Santoshi Tiwari</a>,
a Wikimedian from the city of Nashik who was attending a programme like
this for the first time feels that there is need for more such
programmes more often in multiple cities as there are already 16
Wikimedians from her city who are eager to learn more advanced editing
skills. “I learnt about many interesting aspects of the Wikimedia world,
like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Adventure">Wikipedia Adventure</a> game, Wikidata and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines">Wikipedia policies and guidelines</a>
<p>.
Until this time, I was contributing to Wikipedia on my own but I
started contributing to Wikidata after this event. Now I am enjoying
playing the Wikipedia Adventure. I also got the opportunity to meet many
Wikimedians in person” shares Santoshi. She explains, “this was good as
an introductory event but I would like to participate in sessions that
are more detail-oriented. Also, having edit-a-thons during such events
will be very useful. With a total of about 19-20 people participating in
total, 7 female participants is still a good starting point to
have a balanced community. However there should be plans for
accommodating more people in the upcoming events”.</p>
Going forward, there are plans to have at least one session in four
month in cities where there are higher number of Marathi Wikimedians.
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/training-the-trainer-programme-and-mediawiki-training-at-pune'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/training-the-trainer-programme-and-mediawiki-training-at-pune</a>
</p>
No publishergaruleCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeTrain-the-trainer (TTT)Mediawiki training (MWT)WikipediaMarathi WikipediaWikipediansSpeakMarathi Wikisource2016-08-18T11:14:57ZBlog EntryWikiConference India 2016 Submission: Gender Gap in Indian Language Wikipedias – Projects, Outreach and Outcome
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiconference-india-2016-submission-gender-gap-in-indian-language-wikipedias-2013-projects-outreach-and-outcome
<b>India is not much different from the global statistics when it comes to gender gap issues in Wikipedia. Indian language Wikipedias are known to have similar ratio of male to female editors.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The submission was included as part of a panel related to the gender gap at the <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016">WikiConference India 2016</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many activities are being made to bridge the gender gap in Indian language Wikipedias. These are aimed both at improving the ratio of female to male editors and increasing women related content in Indian language Wikipedias. Some of the notable projects are Art+ Feminism editathon, Lilavati’s daughters editathon, International Women’s day or month editathon, editathon to add articles about woman writers of coastal Karnataka. Sizeable number of students who are part of the Wikipedia in Education Program which are being run at many educational institutes of India are female. Some of these students continue editing and contribute to Wikipedia. Some female students worked as interns and have contributed by improving the quality of articles written by their peers. Outreach is one of the regular activities of taking Wikipedia to people. Outcome of the projects and the data on retention of the participants of outreach activities as regular contributing Wikipedians, survival of the newly created editors for short and long periods are documented and will be presented at the conference.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiconference-india-2016-submission-gender-gap-in-indian-language-wikipedias-2013-projects-outreach-and-outcome'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiconference-india-2016-submission-gender-gap-in-indian-language-wikipedias-2013-projects-outreach-and-outcome</a>
</p>
No publisherpavanajaWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-08-17T02:43:54ZBlog EntryWikiConference India 2016 Submission: We, Men, Women: Collective Learning in Bridging Indic Wikipedia Gender Gaps
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiconference-india-2016-submission-we-men-women-collective-learning-in-bridging-indic-wikipedia-gender-gaps
<b>There is no denying that non-English Wikipedias are disproportionally underrepresented in scholarly focus despite the significant role of an open knowledge society can play in smaller linguistic groups – local collaboration and communication, knowledge dissemination, as well as preservation of local language resources.</b>
<p>A <a class="external-link" href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1P7B5l6AK9NvvpBZ5LN5AD6g2jEk1IT74Skp0ZR-1I0Y/edit?pref=2&pli=1#slide=id.p3">presentation</a> was made at the <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016">WikiIndia Conference 2016</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Likewise, for the issue of the Wikipedia gender gap, missing the discourse and context of the Indian language Wikipedias’ gender imbalance will be a great loss considering the potential it possesses in gender empowerment and the recognition of female’s accomplishment in the local communities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In this action research, we approach the issue with localized lens to investigate the gender gaps in five Indian language Wikipedias (Kannada, Konkani, Telugu, Odia, and Marathi) and to recode female participants' experiences in editing, negotiating, and communicating. However, this is not an ordinary gender gap bridging plan, we are not only promoting the idea of female-inclusive open knowledge society, but also actively searching for effective incentives, tangible outcomes, and sustainable strategies to cope with the challenges in respective contexts. Most importantly, we hope to create an example for the establishment of “community feedback loops” for reflective learning. Combining practical approach with theories in Feminism and Social Network, we ask.</p>
<ul>
<li>How do female and women’s organizations perceive Wikipedia and its use on knowledge production?</li>
<li>How do we incentivize females and various female organization and make them feel empowered through online contribution?</li>
<li>What type(s) of network are ideal for female newcomers? How can we improve cross-community/gender communication?</li>
<li>How can we build a more welcoming platform for collaboration?</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indian language Wikipedias may be small, but they are in the phase of much flexibility and opportunities to shape and reshape the cultures and dynamics. Through the cyclical process of an action reaction, narrowing gender gaps in our local Wikipedias is no longer discrete events of individual efforts – but a collective action, a mutual learning, as what Wikipedias were built for.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiconference-india-2016-submission-we-men-women-collective-learning-in-bridging-indic-wikipedia-gender-gaps'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiconference-india-2016-submission-we-men-women-collective-learning-in-bridging-indic-wikipedia-gender-gaps</a>
</p>
No publisherElisachangWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-08-17T02:37:01ZBlog EntryWikiConference India 2016 Submission: How to better tell your Wikimedia Community Story using Media as a Tool
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiconference-india-2016-submission-how-to-better-tell-your-wikimedia-community-story-using-media-as-a-tool
<b>The Wikimedia community has constantly struggled to a) reach out to masses and tell them about their contribution, and motivate people to contribute to the Wikimedia projects. Media plays a very important role in spreading the word about Wikimedia projects and the contributor community, and at times, encouraging the audience to contribute.</b>
<p>A presentation was made at the <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiConference_India_2016_submissions/Accepted">WikiConference India 2016</a>. This was one of the submissions which was accepted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This has not been a very successful trend in the movement so far that a large number of people have engaged on Wikimedia projects because of a media shoutout. But there is no doubt about media being a great tool to engage with a large number of people. Apart from the mainstream media, social media has also been a gamechanger in mobilizing masses. The audience in both these kinds of media demand a certain kind of content and storytelling. And it is not easy to create relevant content for an audience that is hungry for new stories. Also, dealing with mainstream media has a lot to do with interpersonal skills.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This workshop would cover a few best practices from lessons learned from several media-related exercises in the recent years. Some of these exercises come with success and some with failures with some specific learning. And these important takeaways will hopefully lead a path in creating some kind open education resources (OER) for the Wikimedia community. However, none of the methodologies that are going to be discussed here are going to be ready solutions to change the awareness about the Wikimedia movement overnight. But these will certainly help the participants map their own community stories. The interactive workshop will help the participants to make some roadmap for a regular and sustained engagement on media.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Those who are keen on learning about using different media tools and take their Wikimedia stories to a wider world should consider participating this. It would be beneficial if they come prepared with a list of challenges that they are facing in media outreach.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiconference-india-2016-submission-how-to-better-tell-your-wikimedia-community-story-using-media-as-a-tool'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiconference-india-2016-submission-how-to-better-tell-your-wikimedia-community-story-using-media-as-a-tool</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-08-17T02:24:19ZBlog EntryTulu Wikipedia Conference in Mangaluru
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/tulu-wikipedia-conference-in-mangaluru
<b>A Tulu Wikipedia conference organized by the Times of Kudla (Tulu name for Mangaluru) newspaper was held at Malki, near Mangaluru on August 13 and 14, 2016. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a presentation on Tulu Wikipedia. </b>
<p>Prominent Tulu Wikipedians Dr. Vishwanatha Badikana and Dr. Kishore Kumar Rai also talked about their experiences of making Tulu Wikipedia live.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/tulu-wikipedia-conference-in-mangaluru'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/tulu-wikipedia-conference-in-mangaluru</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeTulu Wikipedia2016-09-22T23:50:18ZNews ItemTelugu Wikipedians create Articles on Punjab in Telugu Wikipedia
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/telugu-wikipedia-articles-on-punjab-media-coverage
<b>Telugu Wikipedians created articles on Punjab in a national level contest. Telugu Wikipedians received a trophy during the closing ceremony of Wiki conference India at Chandigarh.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Telugu Wikipedians created more than 450 articles about Punjab in Telugu Wiki and shared their experiences with English and Malayalam Wikpedians. Along with Pranay Raj, Pavan santhosh worked in co-ordination and Viswanadh in organizing support for this edit-a-thon. Venkata Ramana, Meena Gayathri, Ravi Chandra, Pavan Santhosh, Murali Mohan, Sujatha, Sultan Khadar, Viswanadh, Bhaskara Naidu, Manikantha, Rahmanuddin, Rajasekhar and few others participated in this edit-a-thon and created Punjab related articles such as Punjab cuisine, Punjabi language, history of Sikhism, Punjabi way of dressing, Punjabi dialects and many such aspects. Telugu Wikipedians also made a presentation on the various developments in Telugu Wikipedia.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Media Coverage</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Telugu regional press covered the Punjab edit-a-thon and about the Telugu Wikipedia winning the trophy. The Centre for Internet and Society provided support by releasing an open press note that could be edited by the Wikipedia community in Village pump for press relations.</p>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Coverage in Sakshi</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Presscoverageinsakshi.jpg" alt="Sakshi" class="image-inline" title="Sakshi" /></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Coverage in Eenadu</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Presscoverageineenadu.jpg" alt="Eenadu" class="image-inline" title="Eenadu" /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/telugu-wikipedia-articles-on-punjab-media-coverage'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/telugu-wikipedia-articles-on-punjab-media-coverage</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KTelugu WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-08-12T14:02:20ZNews ItemWikipedia WikiMeetup at Bangalore
https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikipedia-wikimeetup-at-bangalore
<b>Bangalore based Wikipedians will gather for a meeting at the Centre for Internet and Society on Sunday, August 14, 2016 at 3.00 p.m.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Anyone interested in Wikipedia (user, contributor or curious about it). Wikipedians from any part of India or the world and anyone who is interested in Wikipedia! Meetup is open to members of all Wikimedia projects and Wikipedians from all languages. All are welcome, and we are especially interested in seeing newcomers to join the experienced Wikipedians/Wikimedians.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikipedia-wikimeetup-at-bangalore'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikipedia-wikimeetup-at-bangalore</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaEvent2016-08-12T13:31:04ZEventWikipedia launches in Tulu, its 23rd Indic language
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/medianama-august-9-2016-vivek-pai-wikipedia-launches-in-tulu-23rd-indic-language
<b>Wikipedia has launched in Tulu, making it the 23rd Indian language Wiki, reports domain-b. The announcement was made at the Wikiconference India 2016 held in Chandigarh last weekend.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.medianama.com/2016/08/223-wikipedia-tulu-launch/">published on Medianama website</a> on August 9, 2016.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Tulu wiki is located at <a href="https://tcy.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B2%AE%E0%B3%81%E0%B2%96%E0%B3%8D%E0%B2%AF_%E0%B2%AA%E0%B3%81%E0%B2%9F">tcy.wikipedia.org</a>, and has been in ‘incubation’ since 2008, basically still waiting to go live or active. However, it was reactivated in 2014 following meetings and workshops at the ‘World Tulu Conference’ held the same year. As of now, the Wiki has about 200 registered editors, of which it claims around 100 have more than 10 edits, with 8-10 active editors online on an average. Note that there are around 2 million Tulu speakers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Other Indic language wikis</b>: In September 2013, the Goa University had <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2013/09/223-goa-university-partners-cis-india-to-build-konkani-wikipedia/">entered</a> into a three year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building the Konkani Wikipedia, which was launched 6 months later. Similarly in August 2014, former Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2014/08/223-nitish-kumar-launches-biharonwikipedia-campaign-details-please/">launched</a> the ‘Bihar on Wikipedia’ campaign inviting people of the state to write about their villages, towns, and the unique culture of the state, its history, development over the years, eminent personalities and other important aspects of the state.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia is currently available in 23 Indian languages including Tulu, Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Newari, Odia, Pali, Panjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Note that in 2012, Wikipedians were <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2012/05/223-wikipedians-digitizing-out-of-copyright-text-in-eight-indian-languages/">digitizing</a> Indian language, out-of-copyright texts online, trying to address the comparative paucity of Indic language texts online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Wikipedia Indic language stats</b>: As of June 2016, Wikipedia had 1<a href="https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm#comparisons">6 million page view per month</a> on the Hindi wiki, with overall 106,844 articles. This is not a significant increase. According to this August 2011 <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2011/11/223-wikipedia-in-indic-languages-32-95-million-pageviews-in-aug-2011-online-vs-mobile/">report</a>, there were 0.1 million Hindi articles on the platform, and 9 million overall views.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Ban for paid advocacy</b>: In September last year, the editors at the English Wiki <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2015/09/223-wikipedia-paid-advocacy-ban/">blocked 381 user accounts</a> for ‘black hat’ editing. The platform claims that these users were engaged in undisclosed paid advocacy, the practice of accepting or charging money to promote external interests on Wikipedia without revealing their affiliation, a violation of Wikipedia’s terms of use.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: left; "> </span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/medianama-august-9-2016-vivek-pai-wikipedia-launches-in-tulu-23rd-indic-language'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/medianama-august-9-2016-vivek-pai-wikipedia-launches-in-tulu-23rd-indic-language</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeTulu Wikipedia2016-08-09T13:56:00ZNews ItemIndia's 23rd Regional Wikipedia Launches
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/ccm-august-8-2016-ranu-p-india-23-regional-wikipedia-launches
<b>A Tulu version has gone live on Wikipedia, making it the 23rd one in an Indian language to do so.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The blog post by Ranu P. was <a class="external-link" href="http://ccm.net/news/27625-india-s-23rd-regional-wikipedia-launches">published by CCM.net</a> on August 8, 2016. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Tulu, an Indian language that is popular in the southern part of the country has received its own <a href="https://tcy.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B2%AE%E0%B3%81%E0%B2%96%E0%B3%8D%E0%B2%AF_%E0%B2%AA%E0%B3%81%E0%B2%9F" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> version — for which over 100 editors created 1,100 articles. The announcement was made on Aug. 6 during the Chandigarh-based WikiConference India 2016 by Vishwanatha Badikana and Bharatesha Alasandemajalu, two community organizers who made an 8-year-old dream come true. The greatest hope is that the Tulu wiki will lend support to the struggling language, which is used by just over 2 million native speakers who largely reside in Karnataka. Some research even suggests that it is among the earliest of Dravidian languages, which would make it roughly 2,000 years old. <br /> <br />"After we became [sic] live, we will import articles from the 'incubator' site, build the 'village pump,' set up policies, administration structure, info boxes, and templates," said Dr. UB Panavaja, an engineer and a longtime supporter of regional language computing. In addition to the 23 already-launched Indian <a href="http://ccm.net/news/25190-wikipedia-publishes-forgotten-links" target="_blank">Wiki</a> versions, which include Bengali, Manipuri, Hindi, Nepali, Punjabi, and Urdu, there are another 18 Indian languages that are still in the incubator stage awaiting publishing.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/ccm-august-8-2016-ranu-p-india-23-regional-wikipedia-launches'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/ccm-august-8-2016-ranu-p-india-23-regional-wikipedia-launches</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeTulu Wikipedia2016-08-09T03:14:58ZNews ItemWikipedia now available in Tulu
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/domain-b-august-8-2016-wikipedia-now-available-in-tulu
<b>In another boost to yet another Indian language, the Wikipedia in Tulu has gone live.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This was published by <a class="external-link" href="http://www.domain-b.com/industry/Media/20160808_available.html">domain-b.com</a> on August 8, 2016. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The news was announced by two key community organisers on Saturday who helped to make an eight-year-dream come true, IANS reported.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Dr Vishwanatha Badikana, a PhD in Kannada literature in Mangalore (Karnataka) and Bharathesha, a mechanical engineer based in Muscat announced at the Wikiconference India 2016, India's second national Wikipedia meet in half a decade which is being held in Chandigarh this weekend.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Tulu, which is spoken by around 2 million speakers mostly in southwest Karnataka and in Kasaragod district of Kerala belongs to the family of Dravidian languages. According to some scholars, Tulu is among the earliest Dravidian languages with its roots going back some 2,000 years.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia itself is available in 22 Indian languages, with Tulu becoming the 23rd. There are another one-and-half dozen Indian language Wikipedias under development at present. However, not all languages have an active wiki community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Located at tcy.wikipedia.org, the Tulu Wikipedia had been in "incubation" since 2008 and the term was used to describe such online collaborately-crafted encyclopedias which were still waiting to go "live" or active and come online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It was reactivated around 2014, following some meetings and workshops and the concept was also showcased that year at a "World Tulu Conference" stall in December.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"There are about 200 registered users (editors), out of which around 100 have more than 10 edits. On an average, there are about 8 to 10 active editors," Dr UB Pavanaja from the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, and one of the mentors of Tulu Wikipedia, told The Hindu newspaper.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He further added that, "Vishwanatha Badikana, a Kannada professor, followed by Bharatesha Alasandemajalu, an engineer, are the highest contributors."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to Pavanaja, the achievement would help create pressure on the government to include Tulu in the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia is available in 22 Indian languages including, Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Newari, Odia, Pali, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The inclusion of Tulu takes the count to 23.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/domain-b-august-8-2016-wikipedia-now-available-in-tulu'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/domain-b-august-8-2016-wikipedia-now-available-in-tulu</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeTulu Wikipedia2016-08-09T03:05:28ZNews ItemIndia's 23rd Regional Language Wikipedia Goes Live in Tulu
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/indo-asian-news-service-ndtv-august-8-india-23-regional-language-wikipedia-goes-live-in-tulu
<b>The Tulu Wikipedia has just gone live, giving another boost to yet another ancient Indian language otherwise struggling to keep up with the times and speedily changing technology.</b>
<p><span class="adblockerContent"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Originally <a class="external-link" href="http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/indias-23rd-regional-language-wikipedia-goes-live-in-tulu-870353">published by Indo Asian News Service, the blog post was mirrored by NDTV</a> on August 8, 2016.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The news was announced by two key community organisers on Saturday who helped to make an eight-year-dream come true. Dr Vishwanatha Badikana, a PhD in Kannada literature in Mangalore (Karnataka) and Bharathesha, a mechanical engineer based in Muscat, announced this while attending Wikiconference India 2016, India's second national <a href="http://gadgets.ndtv.com/tags/wikipedia">Wikipedia</a> meet in half a decade being held in Chandigarh this weekend.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Tulu is a language spoken by around two million native speakers mainly in southwest Karnataka and in Kasaragod district, Kerala. It belongs to the Dravidian family of languages. Some scholars suggest Tulu is among the earliest Dravidian languages with its roots going back some 2000 years.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia itself is available in 22 Indian languages, with Tulu becoming the 23rd. There are another one-and-half dozen Indian language Wikipedias in the incubator stage at present. Not all languages have an active wiki community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Located at <a href="http://tcy.wikipedia.org/" target="_blank">tcy.wikipedia.org</a>, the Tulu Wikipedia has been in "incubation" since 2008. This term is used to describe such online collaborately-crafted encyclopedias which are still waiting to to go "live" or active and come online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Around 2014, it was reactivated. Following some meetings and workshops, the concept was also showcased that year at a "World Tulu Conference" stall in December of that year.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After much work, some 1,100 articles (or 1,050 if one could ignore those which are not redirects) went live. There are currently about 100 editors who have made over 10 edits each.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Dr Vishwanatha and Bharathesha are the number one and number two contributors," said Dr UB Panavaja, a former scientist and techie and long-term supporter of Kannada computing. Pavanaja currently looks after the CMR (Creating Movement Resources) of the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society which works with some language groups to promote their Wikipedia presence.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"After we became live, we will import articles from the 'incubator' site, build the 'village pump', set up policies, administration structure, info boxes and templates," said Pavanaja, describing the tools that any new Wikipedia needs to set up.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Scholars like the nineteenth missionary-linguist Bishop Robert Caldwell have called this language "peculiar and very interesting". According to him, "Tulu is one of the most highly developed languages of the Dravidian family. It looks as if it had been cultivated for its own sake."</p>
<p>The language has a lot of written literature and a rich oral literature such as the Epic of Siri, according to the Wikipedia itself.</p>
<p>In coastal Karnataka, both the Mangalore and Udupi areas today allow the language as an optional third-language in local schools.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This role in schooling makes it all the more mandatory to create encyclopaedic texts in the language, say its Wikipedia promoters. Mangalore University also has a Tulu language chair while St Aloysius's Radio Sarang community radio station broadcasts daily in this tiny language and the local All India Radio also broadcasts in the language.</p>
<p>Some five Kannada language representatives and one from Tulu are presently in Mohali-Chandigarh attending Wikiconference India 2016.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indian Wikipedias include Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Newari, Odia, Pali, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, besides, now, Tulu.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/indo-asian-news-service-ndtv-august-8-india-23-regional-language-wikipedia-goes-live-in-tulu'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/indo-asian-news-service-ndtv-august-8-india-23-regional-language-wikipedia-goes-live-in-tulu</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeTulu Wikipedia2016-08-09T03:02:16ZNews Itemತುಳು ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲೂ ಬಂತು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/asianet-suvarna-news-august-7-2016-tulu-wikipedia-goes-live
<b>ಪಂಚ ದ್ರಾವಿಡ ಭಾಷೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದಾದ `ತುಳು' ಸಹ ಇದೀಗ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಎಂಟ್ರಿಯಾಗಿದೆ. ಭಾರತದ 23ನೇ ಪ್ರಾದೇಶಿಕ ಭಾಷೆಯ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾ ತುಳು ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಆರಂಭವಾಗಿದೆ.</b>
<p><span>ಈ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾ ಸೃಷ್ಟಿಗೆ ಕಾರಕರ್ತರಾದ ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಡಾ. ವಿಶ್ವನಾಥ ಬಡಿಕಾನ ಮತ್ತು ಮಸ್ಕತ್`ನ ಮೆಕಾನಿಕಲ್ ಇಂಜಿನಿಯರ್ ಭರತೇಶ ಈ ವಿಷಯವನ್ನ 2016ರ ವಿಕಿ ಕಾನ್ಫರೆನ್ಸ್`ನಲ್ಲಿ ಘೋಷಿಸಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ದಕ್ಷಿಣ ಕನ್ನಡ ಮತ್ತು ಕೇರಳದ ಕಾಸರಗೂಡಿನ ಸುಮಾರು 20 ಲಕ್ಷಕ್ಕೂ ಅಧಿಕ ಜನರಿಗೆ ತುಳು ಮಾತೃಭಾಷೆಯಾಗಿದೆ. ಪಂಚದ್ರಾವಿಡ ಭಾಷೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದಾದ ತುಳು ಭಾಷೆಗೆ 2000 ವರ್ಷಗಳಷ್ಟು ಇತಿಹಾಸವಿದೆ.</span></p>
<p><span>The news was published by <a class="external-link" href="http://archive.suvarnanews.tv/news/Karnataka/wikipedia-in-tulu-language-27883">Asianet Suvarna News</a> on August 7, 2016<br /></span></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/asianet-suvarna-news-august-7-2016-tulu-wikipedia-goes-live'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/asianet-suvarna-news-august-7-2016-tulu-wikipedia-goes-live</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeTulu Wikipedia2016-09-23T00:22:53ZNews Item