Centre for Internet and Society

WikiTungi: Bhubaneswar City Wiki Community Turns 1

sailesh — 2017-02-27T01:42:11Z

The Odia Wikipedia’s WikiTungi is an attempt at building a community of Wikimedians at the city level.

The tungi, named after an ancient practice in Odia that involves passing on knowledge of the scriptures, is a city based Wikipedia community that helps Wikimedians around the city to meet and learn from their shared experiences. The Tungi meetups and events are organised with the help of the volunteers.

The Odia community's WikiTungi is based out of two cities, Puri and Bhubaneswar. While Wikimedians in Puri conduct meetups bi-monthly, Bhubaneswar Wikimedians meet once a month. In every meetup, Wikimedians exchange their resources with each other, helping address their doubts and queries regarding their problems and projects.

This February marks the first anniversary of the Bhubaneswar WikiTungi. The WikiTungi members from the city meet every second Sunday of the month. To commemorate the first anniversary of this novel effort, nine community members from the Bhubaneswar Tungi met for a celebratory dinner at a local restaurant on 9 February 2017 and toasted to the dedication of the volunteers.

The community discussed various ideas (listed below) and the ways in which they can be implemented in the regular WikiTungi meetups. Members of the community also showed their interest in organising the third edition of WikiConference India in Bhubaneswar to bring Wikipedia to more people across the state of Odisha. During the community meetup, Tungi members came up with few ideas to implement it as a best practice in the Wikipedia movement.

Some of them are listed here:

The Tungi members will invite one of the global community leaders for a Skype or hangout session.
Discuss the best practice from the global community and discuss them with the community.
Updating the minutes of the meeting and sharing them with the other community members.
Updating the Learning and Evaluation team about the new learning of the community every month.
The community will also send postcards as a souvenirs to the participants of the global community for the online sessions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikitungi-bhubaneswar-city-wiki-community-turns-1

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

Wikisource Handbook for Indian Communities

Bodhisattwa Mandal and Ananth Subray P. V. — 2018-09-19T02:18:40Z

Wikisource is one of the trending Wikimedia projects. Many new editors and new books to Indic language Wikisource's get added over a period of time. However, new editors as well as existing editors face numerous problems while working with the content online. The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team, to help the editors, has created this Handbook. CIS invites feedback to the first draft of this Handbook. CIS-A2K will continue to work with the Wikipedia communities to improve their efforts towards developing Wikisource.

Preface

Currently, CIS-A2K is working with five Indian-languages Wikimedia communities (Kannada, Konkani, Marathi, Odia, and Telugu) and one focus project area (Wikisource with punjabi community). While working with the above mentioned Indic Wikimedia communities, we noticed that there are many similarities between the issues and challenges faced by these communities. So, we decided to create this “Wikisource Handbook for Indian Communities”.

At first, we went through the Wikisource of each language and noted the status. Then we talked to Indic Wikipedians to know more about the Wikisource related issues that they are facing. We also asked for the feedback on the first draft of this handbook. Our actual work will start after the release of this book, when we’ll work with the communities to improve their efforts towards developing Wikisource.

Click to download the Wikisource Handbook for Indian Communities co-authored by Bodhisattwa Mandal and Ananth Subray P V. with graphics support from Saumya Naidu.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wiki-source-handbook-for-indian-communities

WikiSangamotsavam 2016

manasa@cis-india.org — 2017-02-06T12:47:54Z

The Malayalam Wikipedia community jointly held its anniversary celebrations and annual gathering in Kasaragod district, Kerala from 26 to 28 December, 2016. The Centre for Internet and Society was invited to partake in the event.

The Malayalam Wikipedia community held its fifth annual gathering, WikiSangamotsavam, in Kasaragod, the northernmost district of the state of Kerala. The culturally diverse district is a melting pot of seven actively spoken languages- Malayalam, Kannada, Tulu, the Beary dialect, Tamil, Marathi and Konkani. It was a three day affair from the 26th to 28th December 2016, with the third day’s WikiVoyage incubator session fittingly held on a houseboat out in the Bekal lake! The event commemorated the regional Wikipedia’s completion of 14 years which fell on the 21st of the month. The community aims to build advanced technical support for its members in the next year.

The first day was marked by a seminar by Mr. Sathyaseelan, a differently abled Wikipedian who demonstrated(video from previous meetup here) how to convert voice to text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) methods for visually challenged Wikipedians. This was followed by a session on Open Street Mapping by the newly elected Malayalam Wikipedia administrator Ranjith Siji. In a one-on-one sit down, Ranjit candidly spoke about the technical challenges that the Malayalam Wikipedia and the wider Wikipedia community faces today. He opines that the existing mobile support for editing wikis is proving insufficient and more robust apps need to be developed to make Wikipedia more mobile ready for on-the-go editors. He’s taking this up as his personal mission for the upcoming year. In light of using freely reusable data, Ranjit says, “collaborative editing must also be enabled as groups can work together to improve local knowledge.”

The second day began with a formal opening ceremony by P. Karunakaran, Member of Parliament for the Kasaragod constituency. He spoke on the importance of furthering the cause of knowledge in India’s most literate state. Then, the Malayalam Wikipedia community sat down for a transparent round table discussion on progress made and targets to be set for 2017. The community noted the success of programs and activities like Ente Gramam (which encouraged members to detail information regarding their village/ ancestral village), Olympics month, Wikipedia Asian Month, Wiki 100 Days, etc. The Wiki 100 Days in particular led to the creation of close to 80 articles a day in Malayalam Wikipedia. The number of articles also saw a surge post the Wiki Conference India 2016 held in Punjab. The discussion mulled on the aspects that need to be improved upon such as selected articles and selected photos on the Main Page which see unenthusiastic voting numbers amongst the community members. Manoj K, an active community member, proposed the strategy of targeting groups of editors(old/new) with niche knowledge of a specific subject or focus area. He related his own experience in this regard: “I’m part of many bird watching and environmental clubs and I talk to them about Wikipedia so that they can use their knowledge about conservation or birds to edit or create those specific wikis.” He also identified challenges that were administrative in nature. “When offline events increase, online participation tends to decrease due to the leg work involved”, he observes. In addition, he feels grant writing and documentation training would also benefit the community. He added that religious vandalism of articles on monuments by fringe groups is also an issue faced by the community.

Anil Kumar, another long time Wikipedian, spoke of the general increase in awareness regarding editing Wikipedia in smaller towns and districts in Kerala. He pointed out that reviving School Wiki would further increase awareness and, subsequently, participation. The Kerala government’s IT@School project is now leading the efforts behind reviving School Wiki which aims to document (in Malayalam) details of all the schools in the state. K. Anvar Sadat, the Executive Director of IT@School spoke to the Malayalam Wikipedia community in a video message enumerating the benefits of a detailed statewide school database. The community also aims to complete their target of 50, 000 Wikipedia articles by the end of the year. The second day came to a close with a seminar on mangalamkali, a local folk dance in the district by Master Ramachandran.

Ranjit Siji further outlined the agenda for 2017 saying that data scraping of public records onto Wikipedia and a tool to maintain edit-a-thons will be a key focus for the community this year. He said, “when data can flow from public record to a wiki, it makes editing much easier and accessible even for new editors.”

When asked Manoj added that the community plans to conduct more online and offline events for community bonding. He said, “monthly meetings and edit-a-thons will keep the community active.” 2017 will also see Wikipedians in the community being rewarded through recognition of their pioneering efforts, he said. However, he emphasised the need for public and social media branding of future events. The final day of the annual gathering was held on a houseboat in Nileshwar. Wikipedian Sajal Karikkan gave a presentation on the Malayalam WikiVoyage project, still in incubation, where users could provide travel guidance about areas they are most familiar with. It was enthusiastically received by the community members. While the event was timed between Christmas and New Year, it did see some enthusiastic participation. However, the community did lack significant participation of women to bridge the gender divide(see chart below). Smitha, a long time Wikipedian and oceanographer feels that working women find it harder. She says, “they simply don’t have the time with their work and family commitments.” With the community planning to create mobile apps for editing in Malayalam, this could be sufficiently addressed through focused efforts to involve more women.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikisangamotsavam-2016

WikipediansSpeak: Telugu Language Library Catalog Project Helps Wikipedia Grow

subha — 2015-12-15T08:06:52Z

In 2013, the interview project “WikipediansSpeak” was launched in response to observations that many noteworthy Wikimedians were being underrepresented both locally and globally. Not just them personally—their work, and the communities they represent, were also unknown to the Wikimedia community and the outside world.

This was published on Wikimedia blog in two languages English and Ukranian.

Wikimedia Foundation’s fundraising campaigns were the biggest inspiration for the project. From video-only interviews, this is an attempt at different ways of interviews, and is the first interview showcasing a Telugu Wikimedian: Viswanadh B.K., who was an Individual Engagement (IEG) Grantee last year and has continued to be active in outreach.

Recently, you attended a Telugu Wikipedia workshop for the Botany-major undergraduate students at Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. Would you like to talk a little bit about your participation, how the program was designed, the activities there and the output? How are you planning to mentor the students in the future?

The staff and students are quite enthusiastic, and the students are dedicating considerable time to learning, and reflecting their learning, while editing the Telugu Wikipedia. However, they need more training on basics of Wikipedia, as well as on policies and guidelines. Without that, they might end up creating low quality articles that the community will face problems cleaning up. Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge program (CIS-A2K), that has been organizing these sessions in the college, should seek out more support from the Telugu Wikimedia community so that the experienced editors could mentor these students. I feel it would be a good idea to award the students and faculty with certificates. These small little things often motivate many.

What part should the community and CIS-A2K be playing in the Wikimedia movement? What could and should we do for the Telugu community?

Many in our community do not know how programs like CIS-A2K work. Maybe there is a need to provide some kind of orientation for them which will help them to understand how they could approach CIS asking for support. This process could also help the community understand CIS’s activities and its programmatic implementation. More collaboration, and understanding of the program among the community, will improve involvement in CIS’s activities as well as CIS’s understanding of the community.

You were the second Telugu Wikipedian to be awarded with an Individual Engagement Grant (IEG). How did it go, and what did you achieve? Based on your own experience, how are you planning to groom this year’s applicants from Telugu and other Indian language Wikimedia communities?

This IEG was my dream come true! Back in 2009, I blogged about the potential of opening up library catalogs on the Internet for people to search for books. It took shape with my grant project: “Digitization of Important Libraries Book Catalog in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana”. I worked on an extensive project, digitizing the catalogs of five libraries—a total of 300,000 books—in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. I learned a lot, and documented part of my learning, which talks about the ways one should go about partnering with Indian institutions. I believe, my interaction with fellow Wikimedians must have helped them to better their grants applications this year. And I am hoping that I will continue to support more friend from my community and country in the future.

What drove you, over the years, to work on a project like this digitizing library catalogs? Were there any additional learning and benefits from this project?

In this digital age, people searching for books on the Internet might have developed the notion that if a book is not available online, it doesn’t exist. I have been experiencing this very issue while looking for evidence notability and citations on the Telugu Wikipedia. Many Wikipedia editors argue for citing at least the name of the book when the book is not available online. This pushed me to create a central catalog that will benefit Wikipedians, researchers, and readers. In the process of creating the catalog, I also managed to develop strong relations with several cultural organizations. These include Kathanilayam, a dedicated organization collecting every Telugu story; the Annamayya Library, which developed into a great cultural center in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh; and the Suryaraya Vidyananda Library, whose collection is enriched with rare manuscripts and important books. I touch based with them then, and they are slowly becoming household names for other Wikimedians for their library-related needs. We can see the potential of strong partnerships and synergy with these libraries.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-blog-october-9-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-telugu-library-catalog-project-wikipedians-speak

WikipediansSpeak: Odia Wikisourcer Shares her Journey and Goals

Subhashish Panigrahi and Nasim Ali — 2016-02-05T20:49:36Z

The most active editor on the Odia Wikisource is Pankajmala Sarangi, a native of Odisha who now lives in New Delhi, where she works at a non-profit. As a leader in a broad community that is dominated by males—indeed, she is the most active contributor to the Odia-language Wikisource—we asked her to share her journey and her goals to grow the project and community as part of the “WikipediansSpeWell, I think I would work on creating a database of all the Odia speakers living in New Delhi and the city organizations that work in propagating Odia language and culture, and plan Wikisource outreach programs for them.k” interview series.

Odia Wikisourcer Pankajmala Sarangi shares her experience and future plans to grow the community. Video by Pankajmala Sarangi (original video) and Subhashish Panigrahi (post production), freely licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 license. The video can be viewed here.

What is the community like on the Odia Wikisource?

Pankajmala feels that the community is like her home. “I can’t tell how happy I am after seeing that this one year-old project has already digitized over 200 books. With more and more youth coming on the internet, the internet won’t disappoint them when the type and search in Odia language.”

What are projects that you would like to start or get help from the existing community to grow?

Forming expert /resource groups to increase the thematic group structure in the community so that each group could work collaboratively for specific goals.
We can also create groups through the help of the resident welfare associations in Odisha cities where Odia WikiTungis (in Odia Wikimedia community city based informal groups have been started that actively organize outreach and engage with new Wikimedians) are already working. They can work hand-in-hand. This will help us expand this program to more new places.
We can tie up with basic computer training institutes where their students and new Wikimedians who do not have access to computer/internet could learn about Odia Wikipedia editing as a vocational training. These institutes remain idle during day time and get busy after 4 pm as schools and college students come to learn about computer basics after their class hours.
One idea could be involving veterans whose expertise could help improve the quality of the articles which is otherwise going in vain after retirement. Post retirement life is otherwise lonely and many feel worthless who could enjoy the company of many new friends. The senior citizens groups could train new Wikimedians using these institutional facilities.
Summer vacation Wikipedia outreach for school/college students:
- It has became mandatory in all private schools and colleges to do voluntary work for a few hours every day for six months to finish up a program. We can ask these private institutions to include editing and contributing to Odia Wikipedia and other Odia Wikimedia projects in their syllabus. They would not only get Wikipedians as facilitators without spending any money but will become part of such a global and multilingual group. We can involve students for both editing Wikipedia articles, and digitizing and correcting typos and other mistakes on Odia Wikisource. If a manual with the above details is available then it would be better to refer it while working. When we are discussing something in our community then the users (who are eligible for giving suggestions) should automatically get a message saying your suggestion/input is required on this (with that link to the page).
According to a 2011 survey, Wikipedia editors are only about nine percent female. The Wikisource statistics is not yet known, but I would theorize that it is similar. How do you think we could bridge this gap in Odia?

We surely have less women. We could reorient our current work to bring in a few other aspects like more focused outreach in women’s college and schools, creating a network of women who are interested to contribute to Wikimedia projects, making Twitter lists and Facebook groups for women for more friendly conversation and support, inviting and involving more women participants in Wikimedia outreach. I also wonder how we can gift the top contributors some gifts as a token of appreciation. We could also organize field trips for them to a public library, museum or art gallery so that they get to see how Wikimedia projects could grow by imbibing available resources.

What are your personal plans to build a community for Odia Wikisource in New Delhi?

Well, I think I would work on creating a database of all the Odia speakers living in New Delhi and the city organizations that work in propagating Odia language and culture, and plan Wikisource outreach programs for them.

This post is part of the WikipediansSpeak series, which aims to chronicle the voices of the Wikipedia community. You can find more of these posts on the Wikimedia Commons.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipediansspeak-odia-wikisourcer-shares-her-journey-and-goals

Wikipedian Pavan Santhosh says Telugu Wikipedians are creating Knowledge revolution (in Telugu)

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T01:35:04Z

Pavan Santhosh said that Telugu Wikipedians are creating a knowledge revolution in Telugu. On Sunday, December 12, 2016, in Golden Threshold, Abids, Telugu Wikipedians celebrated Telugu Wikipedia day. Telugu Wikipedians Pranay Raj and Meena Gayathri who successfully completed 100 Wikidays challenge successfully were given mementos and cut a cake on this occassion.

Clipping of the article that appeared in Andhra Jyoti on December 12, 2016:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/andhra-jyoti-december-12-2016-telugu-wikipedians-are-creating-knowledge-revolution

Wikipedia’s 15th birthday inspires Bangla translators; Odia-language Women’s History Month edit-a-thons

Nahid Sultan and Sailesh Patnaik — 2016-06-09T12:10:15Z

Bangla-language Wikipedians translated about 600 articles for their language’s Wikipedia; Odia-language Wikimedians hosted their second annual Women’s History Month edit-a-thon.

The article was published on Wikimedia Blog on May 9, 2016.

Bangla Wikipedians conduct multi-month edit-a-thon

On 15 January, Wikipedia turned fifteen years old . To celebrate this special day, a good article writing competition was organized on the Bangla Wikipedia by Wikimedia Bangladesh. Bangla Wikipedia has a total article count of over 42,000. Among these, only a handful of articles are rated as “good” articles (English equivalent). In an attempt to enhance the content quality in the Bangla Wikipedia, a competition was organized that aimed to increase the number of good articles. The competition lasted from 1 November 2015 to 10 January 2016. The events received press coverage from around the country, including newspapers like Prothom Alo and The Daily Star.

In this contest, Bangla Wikipedians fully translated about 600 good articles from English Wikipedia. A total of 550 Bengali-speaking registered users from Bangladesh, India, Italy and South Korea participated in this two-month long competition; 130 of them were awarded a Wikipedia Badge, wristband, USB flash drive, and T-shirts by Wikimedia Bangladesh. A reviewing panel of 35 experienced and regular users evaluated the translated articles. Among all the participants of the competition, 86% were new to Wikipedia and contributed for the first time, 14% were frequent editors, and 12% were female.

This contest increased the number of good quality articles in Bangla Wikipedia and, at the same time, engaged a huge number of new users in Wikipedia through this contest. S.M. Monir created the highest number of articles and was awarded the first prize, a bicycle, and a certificate in the 15th year celebration program.

Good article edit-a-thon day was another event in this series of programs. Five edit-a-thons were organized in three different cities in the Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong divisions. Like the contest, the aim of the edit-a-thons was to increase the number of good articles on the Bangla Wikipedia. As a result of these edit-a-thons, the number of good articles are increased from 14 to 60. Besides those events, Wikipedia Workshops were held in three different Universities of Bangladesh. On an average, about 50 students attended in each workshop. The main goal of the workshops was to create awareness about Wikimedia projects. Another goal was to introduce Wikipedia (especially Bangla Wikipedia) to the audience and show the attendees how to edit the articles and contribute photographs to Wikimedia Commons.

The series programs ended on 15th January 2016 at Bishwo Shahitto Kendro in Dhaka through the celebration of Wikipedia’s birthday. Noted filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki was present at the program as a special guest.

Nahid Sultan, Secretary
Wikimedia Bangladesh

Odia-language contributors and the women they are inspired by

Last month, the second Women’s History Month edit-a-thon began on Odia-language Wikimedia sites. With a theme of Women I am inspired by, the event aimed to improve articles on these notable individuals. Twenty articles were created and ten were improved, thanks to the dozens of participants—seven of which were women who went on to found an informal group for female editors on the Odia Wikipedia.

Among the participants, eight were brand-new. We reached out to Rajalaxmi Mishra to talk about their experience. Rajalaxmi is a MCA student who began editing the Odia Wikipedia after a Utkal University workshop. Annie Besant, an article she has been working on since the edit-a-thon (in part thanks to Content Translation), is now among the top ten longest articles on the site, and she has also put in time editing Sudha Chandran.

Rajalaxmi chose these articles because Besant “has always inspired me with her personality. Writing an article on her has helped me learn more from her life story. Chandran’s achievements have also inspired me, as she never let her problem [she lost a leg to gangrene in 1981] be a barrier—she is one of the most famous dancers in India.”

Sailesh Patnaik
Access To Knowledge, Centre for Internet and Society

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-blog-may-9-2016-bangla-translations-odia-womens-history

Wikipedia Workshop in the Theme of "Sau Dhuni Teen" in Pune University

garule — 2016-06-18T18:10:43Z

A Wikipedia workshop is being planned to be organised in the Srimati Savitribai Phule Pune University on the 20th August 2015. Under the scope of “Sau Dhuni Teen” project, the workshop is focused on building resources in Indian languages for women's studies on Wikipedia and equip its participants with the rudiments of contributing to Wikipedia, and to introduce it as a concept to them.

The goal of Wikipedia Workshop is to build resources in Indian languages for women's studies on Wikipedia and equip its participants with the rudiments of contributing to Wikipedia, and to introduce it as a concept to them.

Primary goals

To introduce Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia for research and a concept to new editors.
To Promote Marathi Wikipedia Community & promote the use of regional languages in Wikipedia.
To have an open interaction within the editors, existing as well as new.
To spread the awareness of Wikipedia as a powerful tool.

Expected Attendees : 20-30 (only for university research students)

The event is being organised in collaboration with Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education (CILHE).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-workshop-in-theme-of-sou-dhuni-teen-pune-university

Wikipedia workshop at Sinhgad Institute of Technology and Science, Pune

garule — 2016-02-26T10:10:11Z

The goal of this Wikipedia workshop is to increase awareness about Wikipedia and equip its participants with the rudiments of contributing to Wikipedia, and to introduce it as a concept to them. The participants will be learn about Wikipedia and its sister projects. Furthermore, they will be encouraged to contribute in these projects.

Planned activities:

To introduce Wikipedia to the new editors and get them accustomed to the environment.
To promote Marathi Wikipedia and elaborate the use and contribution towards Wikipedia in other Indian languages.
To have an open discussion among the editors the free knowledge movement in general and Wikipedia in particular.
Experienced editors from the Marathi Wikipedia community will demonstrate and educate the participants.
To spread the awareness of Wikipedia as a powerful tool.

We are expecting about 30-60 students to participate in this event. Friends from Hamara Linux also are planning to join in this workshop and mentor the participants.

Wikipedia WikiMeetup at Bangalore

praskrishna — 2016-08-12T13:31:04Z

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.

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.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikipedia-wikimeetup-at-bangalore

Wikipedia Orientation Program at Rotary Club of Salem

manasarao — 2017-12-11T15:52:12Z

CIS-A2K in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Salem, Tamil Nadu conducted a two-day Wikipedia orientation workshop for student members of the club.

Over the December 9- 10 weekend, CIS-A2K, in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Salem, Tamil Nadu conducted a two-day Wikipedia orientation workshop. This workshop focussed on teaching the basics of Wikipedia to all the student members of the club. The overwhelming participation of women volunteers was the highlight of the event. The workshop was organised by the Rotary Club while Salem Tamil Sangam also lent its support to the program. The President of the Rotary Club of Salem implored the students to contribute to the Tamil language by involving themselves more deeply with the Wikimedia projects.

With 13 female participants and 10 male participants, the participants were upbeat throughout both days. Veteran Tamil Wikipedian, Tamil Parithi acted as resource person along with CIS-A2K. Mr. Parithi explained the philosophy and history of the free knowledge movement which he felt was essential to the understanding of the wider Wikimedia movement. Usha Sanghamitra, a participant, reflects, "I previously thought some company was doing this but I am glad to note that it is people like you and me that are editing this information and creating such knowledge resources. I will surely take this up and continue to engage with Wikipedia."

A follow-up workshop is on the cards in December 2017.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-orientation-program-at-rotary-club-of-salem

Wikipedia now available in Tulu

praskrishna — 2016-08-09T03:05:28Z

In another boost to yet another Indian language, the Wikipedia in Tulu has gone live.

This was published by domain-b.com on August 8, 2016. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was quoted.

The news was announced by two key community organisers on Saturday who helped to make an eight-year-dream come true, IANS reported.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

He further added that, "Vishwanatha Badikana, a Kannada professor, followed by Bharatesha Alasandemajalu, an engineer, are the highest contributors."

According to Pavanaja, the achievement would help create pressure on the government to include Tulu in the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution.

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.

The inclusion of Tulu takes the count to 23.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/domain-b-august-8-2016-wikipedia-now-available-in-tulu

Wikipedia launches in Tulu, its 23rd Indic language

praskrishna — 2016-08-09T13:56:00Z

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.

This was published on Medianama website on August 9, 2016.

The Tulu wiki is located at tcy.wikipedia.org, 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.

Other Indic language wikis: In September 2013, the Goa University had entered 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 launched 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.

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 digitizing Indian language, out-of-copyright texts online, trying to address the comparative paucity of Indic language texts online.

Wikipedia Indic language stats: As of June 2016, Wikipedia had 16 million page view per month on the Hindi wiki, with overall 106,844 articles. This is not a significant increase. According to this August 2011 report, there were 0.1 million Hindi articles on the platform, and 9 million overall views.

Ban for paid advocacy: In September last year, the editors at the English Wiki blocked 381 user accounts 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.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/medianama-august-9-2016-vivek-pai-wikipedia-launches-in-tulu-23rd-indic-language

Wikipedia initiative - Celebrating legacy of Bangalore Blue grapes online

praskrishna — 2016-01-29T15:44:36Z

Black is beautiful, and it can go places if it is well researched. When HL Omshivaprakash wrote a Wikipedia article about Karnataka's bidriware, the metal handicraft where gleaming black bowls and hookahs are dotted with delicate silver strips, he didn't expect it to be picked up by the French and Swedes.

Read the article published in the Times of India here. Subhashish Panigrahi gave inputs.

His article has now been translated into their languages. Though it might not lead to more money for the struggling artists of Bidar, they might get an edge while marketing their wares, says Omshivaprakash. This is the advantage that a week-long editathon hopes to achieve. Editors of the online encyclopaedia are celebrating Republic Day by encouraging people to upgrade and contribute articles on those arts, crafts and goods unique to various parts of India. "People are already working on 15 products from Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal," says Subhashish Panigrahi, Wikipedian and language activist.

India has 213 goods and crafts with geographical indication (GIs) tags. The GI mark is a kind of trademark, which indicates that a product's reputation is linked to its origins in a particular area. Of 213 GI tags, only 70 have English entries. So while intricacies of Muga silk-making in Assam and cultivating Bangalore Blue grapes are explained in detail in English, Alleppey coir has only a sketchy Malayalam entry.

"People should know the history of each item. For example, they should know how Kondapalli toys from near Vijayawada are made,"says Nageswara Rao Gullapalli.

Omshivaprakash, who created a signboard outside Bidar Fort last year, with a QR code that allows users to read the relevant wiki entry on their mobile phones, says a change in design can make a difference."The QR code was etched in bidri to create a socio-economic link between readers and artisans. Though the art is expensive, the artists are not paid well,"he says.

It is this desire to unearth new facts that will see Santosh Shinga, an IIT-B researcher, delving deep into Nagpur oranges, Nashik grapes and Mahabaleshwar strawberries. "I am from Nagpur and interested in fruits,"says Shinga, who knows a bit of orange farming.The only exception in his list is Puneri pagadi, the elaborate headgear recently spotted on actor Ranveer Singh in Bollywood movie 'Bajirao Mastani'.

Panigrahi hopes to finish the edits in English by January 30, right in time when the event wraps up by January 31. Karnataka, which tops the list with 30 GI goods, has only a handful of articles and images, says Panigrahi.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/times-of-india-january-27-2016-wikipedia-initiative