Indic Wikisource speak: Info-farmer

jayanta — 2019-04-11T19:19:27Z

Indic Wikisource movement needs more simplification of interface and also unification of existing interfaces. Let us develop new tools for wikisource. Give fund to developers like Shrinivasan. Understand the results of OCR4wikisource which is by self funded. - Info-farmer, Tamil Wiki-librarian share his experience and journey to Tamil wikisource.

CIS:Tell us about yourself, When did you join Wikimedia movement? And What are the projects you are involved in?

Info-farmer:i have join 2007 wiktionary; wikipedia; wikisource; wikibooks; Commons; wikidata

CIS: What are the methods or workflow you follow to contribute on your language Wikisource?

Info-farmer: Manual edit after few answers from senior editors. Then learning about existing tool experiences.. finally chatting with few developers for the new development of a new tool

CIS:How is the awareness about Wikisource in your language Wikimedia community?

Info-farmer: Like any other Indic community, ta.wikisource community is small. As i said earlier, we trying to automate many things. If we get wiki fund, we will plan to outreach in colleges. Most of the Tamil books are written by awarded writers. So it will help the reach students and post graduate students.

CIS:We see there’s a growth in Indic Wikisource movement (showing Amir’s stats), what kind of help does the community need to grow?

Info-farmer: Indic Wikisource movement needs more simplification of interface and also unification of existing interfaces. Let us develop new tools for wikisource. Give fund to developers like Shrinivasan. Understand the results of OCR4wikisource which is by self funded.

CIS:What are the challenges do you face while contributing to the project? Or social challenges while reaching out to aurtors or publishers.

Info-farmer: No problem from our authors or publishers, The problem is from wiki side esp. commons side. Still no guidelines from wikiside about our Nationalized books of Tamil Nadu. if no quick response from our side, we are missing most valuable opportunity from A government side. Simply saying ''WMF should adapt local government state law. WMF admins follows the general copyright law(60 years the death of a author= public domain). Why they are not understanding the law exemptions(Nationalized books of Tamil Nadu.) from a sovereign state. If WMF rigid, no results. OTRS is for a individual authors works what about the bulk of authors. What is role of WMF law advocate team? You are expecting results without any conversations and help steps. Every year Tamil Nadu government releasing many books under public domain. Every time we have to wait for OTRS token. WMF law enforce team think to adapt local law. If you help we will reach few lakhs proofread completed WS pages. We do not need claps. From 1950's, our Tamil scholars working for public domain books.

CIS: How would you describe the future of Wikisource? What are your personal goals for it?

Info-farmer: Outreach for graduate students. Technical improvement to simplify contributions. Getting help from computational linguistics. #1licence1million

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/indic-wikisource-speak-info-farmer

Indic Wikisource Speak: Dr. Hrishikes Sen

jayanta — 2019-04-26T06:42:48Z

There are plenty of people engaged in digitising Bengali books. Plenty of pirated digitised books are available online. We need to tap into that catchment area. I think, if we can prepare high-grade pdf versions of our completed works and spread those to various online non-wiki reader communities, we are likely to get good contributors. -- User:Hrishikes from English and Bengali Wikisource community, share his journey.

CIS : Tell us about yourself, When did you join Wikimedia movement? And What are the projects you are involved in?

Hrishikes: Joined in March, 2007. In Wikisource since 2012.

CIS : What are the methods or workflow you follow to contribute to your language Wikisource?

Hrishikes: Method: I work slowly; try to give meticulous attention. Don't skip pages usually. Work page-by-page upto the last, even if a page is problematic. Come back to previously worked pages time and again, and correct any mistake.

CIS : How is the awareness about Wikisource in your language Wikimedia community?

Hrishikes: Awareness is present in the community, but there is disinclination to work in Wikisource, because of templates and other formatting issues.

CIS : We see there’s a growth in Indic Wikisource movement (showing Amir’s stats), what kind of help does the community need to grow?

Hrishikes: There are plenty of people engaged in digitising Bengali books. Plenty of pirated digitised books are available online. We need to tap into that catchment area. I think, if we can prepare high-grade pdf versions of our completed works and spread those to various online non-wiki reader communities, we are likely to get good contributors.

CIS : What are the challenges do you face while contributing to the project? Or social challenges while reaching out to authors or publishers.

Hrishikes: I like this project. Main issue is getting the time: extracting time from real life commitments. I have not been active in author/publisher liaison.

CIS : How would you describe the future of Wikisource? What are your personal goals for it?

Hrishikes:The main problem is: everybody wants to download books and read them offline. Hardly anyone wants to read online. That attitude is going to stay. So we need to concentrate on giving this to the customers. Books downloaded from our site (transcribed books, not scans) should be of very high quality. If we can achieve this, the future may be good.

CIS : Please share one remarkable work which is available at your domain and you had contributed.

Hrishikes: There are many more ,

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/Indic%20Wikisource%20Speak%20Dr%20Hrishikes%20Sen

Centre for Internet and Society

Indic Wikisource speak: Info-farmer

Indic Wikisource Speak: Dr. Hrishikes Sen