Centre for Internet and Society

For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa's official language

praskrishna — 2013-09-30T05:13:34Z

With many local dialects on the brink of extinction, Joanna Lobo meets the language conservationists who have taken it upon themselves to preserve Goa's official language.

The article by Joanna Lobo was published in DNA on September 29, 2013. Nitika Tandon is quoted.

Social networking site Orkut may have lost its lustre but digging through its remnants throws up a group called Aamchigele Bindaas Community (ABC). It was started to bring together Konkani-speaking people across the world.

The group is now active on Facebook under the name Broad Minded Konkanis (BMK), where people post queries about Konkani words and phrases. "This group has helped members understand the language to a great extent,” says Rajanikanth Shenoy Kudpi, founder and one of the administrators of the 160-member group. BMK has members from Saraswat, Catholic Christian, Bunt, Navayat Muslim, Jain and other communities, who speak Konkani.

“Konkani as a language will definitely be rejuvenated if contemporaries and scholars put in consistent efforts,” says Kudpi.

One such effort was a recent four-day workshop organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Access to Knowledge (A2K) for the students of Goa University and St.Xavier’s College. “We want to strengthen the Konkani Wikipedia,” says Nitika Tandon, programme manager, CIS-A2K.

Tandon quotes the Census Department of India 2001 figures that puts Konkani speakers at 24 lakh but adds that limited documentation is available online.

However, opinion is divided over the language's fate. “I don’t think it's dying,” says Roshan Pai, founder, savemylanguage.org. Pai started the website, a Konkani dictionary that documents the language spoken by the GSB community in and around Mangalore, in 2005.

The site is dependent on volunteer contributions — people send in meanings of various words that are validated by others, who also put in different uses or meanings of the words. All the 17,528 words collected (belonging to GSB dialects in Mangalore, Goa, Kerala and Cochin) are stored online.

One of the major factors behind people talking about saving a language has to do with its links to culture. “It is the essence of life and contains a lot of information that has been passed on through the generations,” says Gurudath Baliga, assistant director at World Konkani Centre, Mangalore.

The centre works towards preserving the language by empowering the community that speaks it through tech-related grassroot activities, documenting folklore, appointing teachers in different schools and publishing books. The centre is now working on Konkanverter.com, an in, catholic Christian, ter script translator, and World Konkani Archives, that will serve as a repository for all data and text. With such initiatives, the language is in safe hands.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/dnaindia-september-29-2013-joanna-lobo-for-the-love-of-konkani

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

Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-10-03T09:14:55Z

The Goa University, on Thursday, re-launched the four volumes of Konkani Vishwakosh (Konkani encyclopedia), and announced its ambitious plan to upload the same on Wikipedia – a free encyclopedia built collaboratively using Wiki software – so as to build the Konkani Wikipedia.

This article was published in Navhind Times on September 27, 2013. T.Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

The university has entered into a 3-year memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), for building up the Konkani Wikipedia.

Vice Chancellor of Goa University Dr Satish Shetye, speaking during the event held at the university said that 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.

“This platform will bring together Konkani speaking people of the world, besides providing an opportunity to learn about digitisation, and write Konkani of global standard.”

Dr Shetye, who incidentally noticed large number of volumes of the Konkani encyclopedia stacked in the Goa University premises, decided to take them to maximum people through their re-launch and upload on the Wikipedia.

The work for the Konkani encyclopedia project was commissioned during the tenure of vice chancellor Prof B Sheik Ali, and was carried out by various people from Dr Manoharrai Sardesai to Dr Tanaji Halarnakar, with the aid of the Konkani department at the university.

The four volumes of the 3,632 page Konkani encyclopedia are being re-released under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 to support the movement of open knowledge and open access. The programme director for the Access to Knowledge Programme of the Centre for Internet and Society, Vishnu Vardhan, speaking on the occasion said that the process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopedia on the Wikipedia would be complete in six months time, and includes processes like scanning, digitisation and creating articles as per the requirement of Wikipedia. He also stressed on the need to rewrite some of the articles in Konkani encyclopedia so as to contemporarise their contents.

Vardhan also informed that relevant training programme would be specially co-designed by the CIS as well as the university to put up the content on the Wikipedia.

Goa University is the first university in the country to re-license copyright of its content, and hence can be termed as the ‘Champion of open knowledge’, he observed. Registrar Prof V P Kamat and head of Konkani department Priyadarshini Tadkodkar were also present on the occasion.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/navhindtimes-goa-news-september-27-2013-goa-university-announces-plan-to-upload-konkani-encyclopedia-on-wikipedia

Goa University Partners CIS India To Build Konkani Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-10-03T09:44:21Z

The Goa university has entered into a three year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building the Konkani Wikipedia, reports navhindtimes.

This blog post by Apurva Chaudhary was published by Medianama on September 30, 2013.

As part of this partnership, Goa University will be uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopedia and the Konkani wikipedia is expected to be available in six months. It appears that the partnership with CIS India includes processes such as scanning, digitization, and creating articles as per requirement of Wikipedia. CIS India has also called out for volunteers for a period of three months to help them digitizing the Konkani encyclopedia.

This is quite notable since most of the development in digitizing documents in Indian language did not include Konkani language, which is spoken in western coast of India. Besides, since the university will upload the Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia, it will allow users to search through texts. Most of the digitization projects just scan the books and upload the pages in image format, which makes it difficult to search or perform any kind of data related query.

Last year in May, Wikipedians were digitizing Indian language, out-of-copyright texts online, trying to address the comparative paucity of Indic language texts online. Wikisource is a repository of documents and archived material that serves as a reference source for Wikipedia, and a means of improving access to information sources. Of the 64 languages Wikisource is available in, 8 are Indian: Tamil (stats), Malayalam (stats),Telugu (stats), Kannada (stats), Sanskrit (stats), Marathi (stats), Bengali (stats) and Gujarati (stats). Note that most of these Indian language Wikipedia’s receive active contribution from CIS India under its CIS-A2K program.

Wikipedia had recorded 43.5 million pageviews in Indian language wikis, as of October 2011. In June 2013, the Hindi language Wikipedia had received monthly pageviews of 7.8 million, Tamil language Wikipedia had received 5.2 million pageviews, among others. So there’s clearly a demand to access information in local languages.

That said, while more languages are being added to the list, it should be seen that the articles in these languages do not contain just one or two sentences. According to an analysis by Shijualex.in, many articles posted under Indian language Wikipedia were under 2kb, indicating that it contained only couple of sentences.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/medianama-september-30-2013-apurva-chaudhary-goa-university-partners-cis-to-build-konkani-wikipedia

Odisha: Wikipedia workshop at IIMC, Dhenkanal

praskrishna — 2013-10-03T10:15:25Z

Wikipedia workshop was held at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, on Monday. The workshop was inaugurated by Head of IIMC, Dhenkanal, Dr Mrinal Chatterjee.

This post was published in Odisha Diary on September 30, 2013.

Inaugurating the workshop, Dr Chatterjee said, “We are always sourcing knowledge from Wikipedia. So now it becomes our duty to enrich it by writing articles for Wikipedia.”

He specifically asked Odiya Journalism students to write more in Odia Wikipedia as there is less content in Odia as compared to other Indian languages.

Subhashish Panigrahi, Program Officer, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Society, coordinated the entire event along with members of Odia Wikipedia, Dr Subas Chandra Rout, Mrutyunjaya Kar and Sasanka Sekhar Das. They provided hands-on training about editing, styles and techniques of writing on Wikipedia to the students.

“Anybody can write and edit available articles on Wikipedia,” Panigrahi said while encouraging students to volunteer for Wikipedia.

Not only Odiya and English, students were also encouraged to contribute articles in various other Indian languages. Students of both Odiya and English Journalism were present during the day-long workshop.

Odiya Wikipedia team are planning to organise a series of workshop with IIMC, Dhenkanal in coming months.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/odisha-diary-september-30-2013-odisha-wikipedia-workshop-at-iimc

Wikisource:Internship Project at New Law College, Pune

subodh — 2017-03-28T15:37:09Z

This Wiki - internship project is being conducted for New Law College (Pune),under the guidance of Prof.Dr.Mukund Sarda, Dean and Principal of NLC by CIS A2K as part of this project at en wikisource; teams of students will acomplish proof reading, validation, compilation annotation etc. of Indian Laws and to begin with Copyright laws and Intellectual property laws at Portal:Copyright law/Copyright law of India.

Next /intermittant stages of a (internship) project, may be conducted on english wikipedia for case studies part, and for questions answers, research etc on english wikiversity.

WikiProject is dedicated to posting and organizing pages for Acts of the Indian Parliament and other Indian legislation. Present collaboration :Intellectual Property Acts:

More information on Wikimedia Blog

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikisource-internship-project-at-new-law-college-pune

‘Some Indian laws could be challenging’

praskrishna — 2012-11-19T04:40:46Z

Wikipedia’s founder member Erik Möller says their principle is not to decide the map of India, but to explain that there is a controversy.

This article was published in Bangalore Mirror on November 15, 2012.

Erik Möller, vice-president engineering and product development, Wikimedia Foundation, is one of the founder members of Wikipedia, along with Jimmy Wales, since it started in 2001. Möller was in Bangalore over the weekend to speak at a technical seminar at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a local chapter of Wikimedia. He spoke about India’s role in the growth of Wikipedia not just in the sub-continent, but globally.

BM: How significant is India in the Wikipedia movement?
EM: Very significant and growing. I don’t have the data on exact number of editors based in India. However currently, 2.4 per cent of all Wikipedia edits globally are made from India. As a comparison, the UK’s is 6.5 per cent. India has overtaken Australia and (narrowly) Brazil since last year. In the 2011 fundraiser, India reached the top 10 of countries giving to the Wikimedia Foundation, with 39,000 donors from India giving the equivalent of $360,468. The 2012 fundraiser will be launched in a few days. (Interestingly, India is the only developing nation in the Top 10 contributing nations).

Does the financial support from India surprise you?
Of course not. You are a country of a billion people (laughs). I think Wikipedia appeals to a lot of cultural sensibilities, sharing of knowledge and culture. I think people here want to share.

Where does India stand in the future of Wikipedia’s roadmap?
India was identified as one of three global priority areas in our 2010-15 strategic plan (alongside Brazil and Arabic language countries). While there are active Wikipedia communities in many Asian countries, India continues to be the Foundation’s main focus area in (non-Arabic) Asia through the “Access To Knowledge (A2K)” programme conducted by CIS as our local partner, funded via a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation.

From the standpoint of freedom to internet access, what do you think of Indian laws?

Depending on your interpretation, specific laws in India could be challenging, particularly in areas of mapping (geographically). We are concerned about those things, but have to run with it. We consider ourselves specifically (governed by) US laws from where we are legally published. But then, Wiki is not an advocacy organisation that goes around telling people which politician to vote for. As Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said, it’s very important all people become educated on the issues. It’s not up to us to decide what’s the correct map of India, of course, but it is up to us to explain there is a controversy.

Are you constantly bombarded with litigation world over?

Surprisingly not.

What are the big developments happening in Wikipedia?

We are currently running two pilot projects – Wikidata and Wikivoyage. For example, today you can find out the GDP of each country on Wikipedia but cannot query and arrange countries by GDP size. Wikidata will allow you to do that. Similarly, Wikivoyage will provide matter-of-fact information on local sites that are of interest to travellers.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/bangalore-mirror-article-kalyan-subramani-nov-15-2012-some-indian-laws-could-be-challenging

Train The Trainer 2017

Manasa Rao — 2017-06-07T08:43:19Z

The Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to Knowledge program conducted its annual flagship event, Train The Trainer(TTT), between 19 to 22 February, 2017 at Jayamahal Palace, Bengaluru. The three day residential workshop focussed on training participants to develop the skills and attributes required for conducting events and outreach activities while also, eventually, taking on leadership roles within their respective language communities. The aim of the program is to groom such leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. 19 participants from nine different language communities from the Indian subcontinent attended the workshop.

The pre-event session on the evening of the 19th consisted of fun games for participants to break the ice and get to know one another. As the evening wound down, the participants, who were invited to bring sweets and savouries from their cities and towns, set up a sweets table. This activity was inspired from Wikimedia Deutschland's candy table at Wikimedia Conference 2015. The idea is to hold an exciting sweet tasting session as the participants attend the workshop. Participants enthusiastically shared trivia about the delicacies they brought to the event and exchanged notes on the various recipes.

Sweets table at TTT 2017/ Image By Manasa Rao/ CC-BY-SA 4.0

Day 1: Introductory discussions, event planning & WikiConference India case study

The first day of the workshop started with a welcome address from the organisers and a formal introductory session for all those present. The participants introduced themselves and spoke about the one Wikipedian they are most inspired by. This was a platform for both participants and organisers to understand each other and their motivation to be a part of the free knowledge movement. Participants also shared the nature of their work on Wikimedia and their pet projects. Most importantly, they spoke about the challenges they have overcome in their journey as a Wikipedian. Pabitra Kumar Panda(User:pkp05) of Odia Wikipedia spoke about how he began editing Wikipedia on his phone using public hotspots in his city(Puri). “I love editing Wikipedia so much that I used to sit for hours together and edit on the street using the wi-fi available. I completely lost track of time,” he said. Another participant, Sumita Roy(User: Sumita Roy Dutta), spoke of how she learned to combine her love for trekking and Wikipedia. She uploads extensively categorised photos on Wikimedia Commons from every trek in order to help potential trekkers or travellers who may wander off the beaten path in the Himalayas.

The interaction gradually transitioned into an activity where participants were asked to present their expectations over the next few days and for the year ahead. Participants were divided into five groups with one CIS-A2K team member at each table to facilitate discussions or clarify doubts. Sanskrit Wikipedian Sidharth Dhodapkar(User:Siddharthdhodapkar) pointed out that while focussing on language communities is important, general outreach activities should also be conducted simultaneously so as to not miss out languages like Sanskrit that are rarely spoken today. Suyash Dwivedi(User:Suyash.dwivedi), an active contributor to Wikimedia Commons, stated that the need of the hour was localisation of global best practices that serve as a guideline for volunteers across Indic language Wikipedias.

Participants presenting their group projects/ Image By Indrajit Das/ CC-BY-SA 3.0

Notably, many participants brought up the need for a more concentrated Wikipedia effort in the domain of education in India. Paramjit Singh(User:param munde), a school teacher from Punjab explained how his students would stand to benefit from a reliable learning platform available online. “We need to explore ways by which we can convert Wikipedia articles into basic educational resources at the school level, keeping Indic languages in mind,” he said. Frederick Noronha(User:Fredericknoronha), a journalist from Panaji and English Wikipedia contributor, urged the participants to tap into digital resources already made available by the National Council of Educational Research and Training. Adding to that, Dr. Manavpreet Kaur, Punjabi Wikipedian and forensic scientist, said that students can be taught animal kingdoms, for example, with the help of “Categories” (of photos) on Wikimedia Commons. Reiterating the need for expert knowledge on subjects, Ramakrishna Reddy Palagiri(User: Palagiri) pointed out that these subject expert articles must be translated across the Indic language Wikipedias. These interactions helped the CIS-A2K team understand the various ways in which we can expand our support providing infrastructure to the Indic language communities.

The first master class session began with CIS-A2K team members, Tanveer Hasan and Tito Dutta, talking about Wikimedia Foundation grants. They elaborated on the two types of grants offered by WMF: individual grants and grants for groups and organisations. They answered questions about the practical nature of processing the grants and the expenses covered by these grants. Participants seemed most interested in the procedure of applying to and receiving the Rapid Project Grant that is commonly requested for edit-a-thons, contests, equipments and events, with a funding of USD 1500- 2000 approximately.

This was followed by a session on “Essentials of Conducting an Event” by long time Wikipedian (Retd.) Col. Ashwin Baindur. The session mapped the connect between the spirit of conducting an event and the logistical challenges trainers and volunteers must be prepared to face. He pointed out that professional administrative support and preparedness leads to Wikipedians feeling a sense of purpose. He related a quote from his personal experience and said, “the more you sweat in peace(i.e.planning and preparation), the less you bleed in war(i.e. the actual event). Participants were glad the presentation touched upon new topics such as generating enthusiasm through pre-work, dividing participants into groups so as to facilitate healthy exchanges and following up with sharing of the event’s documentary resources and feedback.

The day came to an end with Dr. Manavpreet Kaur’s presentation on WikiConference India. She put forth a case study on how they prepared for and conducted the pan India event in 2016. This presentation went through the administrative process and challenges as well as tips that helped conduct such a large scale conference.

Day 2: Excursion to Cubbon Park & the Wikipedian’s ethos

Participants at Cubbon Park/ Image By Manasa Rao/ CC-BY-SA 4.0

The second day involved an excursion for the participants who were geared up to go to Cubbon Park, Bangalore. This was a nature walk conducted by long time Wikipedian, Shyamal Lakshminarayan(User:Shyamal). The organic discussions that took place during the excursion surrounded conducting photo-thons and GLAM activities that drew on local heritage and biodiversity. The participants visited the Government Museum near the park and Shyamal explained the importance of knowing about the available resources of knowledge for every Wikipedian. “It’s cheaper to put wrong information on the web, so physically visiting libraries to find relevant information will help you judge the credibility of a source,” he said. At the late afternoon session back at the conference venue, participants were introduced to the Internet Archive while Col. Baindur helped the participants understand easy reference templates. Participants were even taught hacks that they could use to cultivate new editors. For example, while uploading Commons images with different categories is important, someone who doesn’t know how to do it may still upload the images with the basic categories so that other users may add detailed categories. A new Wikimedian may initially find this useful as he/she is learning the ropes. Reflecting on the morning’s excursion, the participants were encouraged to ponder on the more philosophical question: how does knowledge on Wikipedia reflect the reality around us?

Day 3: Global Initiatives, Gender Gap Bridging on Indic Wikipedias & Feedback

The final day of Train The Trainer 2017 began with a masterclass on global initiatives that the participants could learn from and adapt to their communities. Some of the methodologies for improving community consultation were discussed such as needs assessment, outreach activities and surveys. The participants (who would all ideally be prepared to take on the role of trainers) were introduced to Learning Patterns and how they could document the lessons they have learned regardless of the outcome of their event. Another global strategy, global engagement, was also discussed in detail. Participants were asked to make the fullest use of traditional and social media in promoting their events, whether online or offline. Participants were introduced to Share-A-Fact, an inbuilt option on the Wikipedia mobile application which allows the sharing of any sentence or phrase as per the reader’s choice from a Wikipedia article onto any social media or email application. This is imposed over a photo from the article along with a link to the article itself. Participants who were active on social media pointed out that the social media handle of CIS-A2K team had shared these quick facts during the excursion the previous day.

Ravi Ayakannu conducting a session on photo contests/ Image By Indrajit Das/ CC-BY-SA 3.0

Following this, Ravi Ayakannu, long time Tamil Wikipedia community member held a session on conducting photo contests such as Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Food. He explained that these are held online and help keep the volunteers motivated without requiring their physical presence. Mr. Ayakannu advised the participants to be inclusive in their approach to awarding best photos such as awards for diversity, creativity, etc. He suggested that organisers must give themselves ample time before adjudging the photos and the organisers could involve someone from Commons. "These contests would also get professional non-Wikimedian photographers involved and hence produce high quality images", he added. For promoting the photo contest, Mr. Ayakannu suggested site banners on Wikipedia.

The final session of the workshop was on Wikipedia and Women. Ting Yi Chang, CIS-A2K research intern, working on exploring ways to bridge the gender gap on Indian Wikipedias conducted the session. Participants were introduced to global initiatives for bridging both the women-related content and male to female editor ratio gap on Wikipedia. While speaking on her soon to be published gender gap bridging toolkit(inspired by User:Keilana's Systemic bias kit) for Indic Wikipedias, Ting Yi noted, "women are not periphery subjects and we must avoid treating it as such." Participants appeared interested to learn about projects such as Women in Red that makes an effort to add women-related content on Wikipedia. The session also reminded participants to organize community events during commemorative events such as Women's History Month in March. The following are a few global initiatives on Gender Gap Bridging:

1. Women's History Month

2. Art and Feminism

3. Wiki Women's User Group

The session was followed by activities that were aimed at sensitizing the participants and urging them to think critically on issues they could potentially face as organizers, both on and off wiki, regarding the participation of women or women-related content. The session came to an end with a free-wheeling discussion among participants about the various scenarios, biases and mindsets they need to be aware of while attempting to bridge the gender gap on Wikipedia and related projects.

As the three day event drew to a close, the participants shared some of their key takeaways and follow-up action points which included cross-community collaborations and mentorship at least at the regional level, encouraging informal/ semi-formal opportunities for community members to mingle and share their ideas with one another among others.

To watch videos of the event, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/train-the-trainer-2017

Digitisation, Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource Orientation Workshop at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal, Pune District

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-06-07T08:37:48Z

A digitization workshop was held at Vigyan Ashram, following the success of the introductory workshop in February.

On 5 February, an introductory Wikipedia orientation program was held in partnership with Vigyan Ashram, for 15 youths from Pabal and surrounding villages in Shirur, Maharashtra. Given the keen interest and enthusiasm of the participants, a follow up workshop was held on 3 April, 2017.

This workshop was attended by 30 participants who were trained on Wikimedia projects such as Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. They were given an orientation on digitization and OCR tools as well. The workshop aims to enable the training of resource persons who can go onto be employed at libraries and museums in order to help with their digitization efforts. The scanning of old encyclopedias in Marathi has also been proposed for the Wiktionary project.

Participants were taught how to upload books from the Internet Archive to Wikimedia Commons. Subsequently,there was also a demonstration of transferring books from Commons to Wikisource. There are two ways of doing this: the page by page OCR process or converting a complete book through OCR4Wikisource. As OCRS4Wikisource program runs only on Linux, limitation of machines at the event was a hurdle in providing all the participants a hands on experience. Therefore, the scanning activity could not be completed.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/digitisation-wikimedia-commons-and-wikisource-orientation-workshop-at-vigyan-ashram-pabal-pune-district

Marathi Wikipedia Symposium at Gokhale Institute Of Politics & Economics

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-06-07T08:45:18Z

A strategic symposium on Marathi Wikipedia and its sister projects was conducted on 29 April, 2017

The Marathi Wikipedia community held a symposium at the Gokhale Instititute of Politics and Economics on 29 April, 2017. This was an attempt to bring together various stakeholders for developing a strategic plan for Marathi language wiki projects such as Wikipedia, and especially Marathi Wikisource and Wiktionary. Over 70 persons were involved in the strategic planning efforts to take Wikisource and Wiktionary to existing Marathi Wikipedians and the general public at large. Eminent ecologist, Prof. Madhav Gadgil served as a resource persons for this event.

Gokhale Institute Of Politics & Economics and Rawat's Nature Academy took lead in organising this symposium. CIS-A2K facilitated the process. A total of 50 eminent personalities from various fields such as literature, linguistics, journalism, science forums, publishers, librarians, State Language & Culture Department honchos, active citizen forums working on different issues etc. took active part in the proceedings. They aim to act as anchors in future. According to the needs of Wikimedia projects, 12 Action Groups have been formed. Planning further sessions for May and June has begun over a common email thread.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/marathi-wikipedia-symposium-at-gokhale-institute-of-politics-economics

Thematic Edit-a-thon at J.P.Naik Centre for Education & Development, Pune

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-06-07T08:59:43Z

A Marathi Wikipedia workshop was held at the J.P. Naik Centre for Education and Development in Pune recently.

A Marathi Wikipedia workshop was conducted in conjunction with VIgyan Ashram, a social work organization on 9 May, 2017. This was held at the J.P. Naik Centre for Education and Development. Vigyan Ashram conducts courses on Introduction to Basic Technology (IBT) or Multi Skill Foundation Course in various schools for integrating socially useful productive work with school curriculum. The goal of Wikipedia edit-a-thon was to attempt to integrate these objectives with Wikipedia Education Program and develop long term strategies. It also aims to build resources in the field of appropriate rural technologies on Marathi Wikipedia and equip its participants with the skills necessary to contribute to Wikipedia.

A total of 23 IBT coordinators from 18 schools(of 9 districts) participated in the workshop.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/thematic-edit-a-thon-at-j-p-naik-centre-for-education-development-pune

Project Tiger 2.0 utilisation certificate

A2K — 2020-09-23T23:40:44Z

Project Tiger 2.0 utilisation certificate

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/project-tiger-2-0-utilisation-certificate

Project Tiger 2.0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Project Tiger 2.0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Project Tiger 2.0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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