Hi friends,
We will have our IRC meetup on Jan 7, 2011, from 9:00 pm to 10:00 pm
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Internet_Relay_Chats/Jan_07,2012
We from Wikimedia India Chapter invites you all to take part in the IRC
meetup.
On behalf of Wikimedia Chapter (India)
Thanks,
Naveen Francis
*The Hindu : "Cracking the Konkani code"*
http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/karnataka/article2783403.ece
*The Konkani language is curious in many ways. Although interesting from a
cultural perspective as it is spoken by a cross-section of people, creating
online content in the language is challenging because it is written and
read in multiple scripts.*
*
*
*Written in Kannada, Devanagari, Malayalam, Arabic and Roman scripts, the
challenge for technologists is presenting the same content in multiple
scripts.*
*
*
*Now, a group of people that includes Wikipedians are fine-tuning a
transliteration tool straddling the multiple scripts of Konkani. If the
tool succeeds, it can be used for other multiple-script languages such as
Kashmiri, Santhali and Chinese. “Reviving the language is a challenge, but
we can overcome the script barrier with the transliteration tool, said Santhosh
Thottingal, Wikimedia Foundation engineering staff.*
*
*
*Wikipedian Hariprasad Nadig said the tool could be used beyond Wikipedia
by any website to enable its readers to view Konkani in Kannada and
Devanagari scripts. The tool uses a software module written for the Serbian
Wiki. “The problem is the same…with Indian languages the problem is
escalated as there are more complex scripts and phonetic differences,” Mr.
Nadig said. The tool has two parts: one, to enable the reader to read in
the script he prefers, and two, enabling the reader to add text in his
preferred script. Currently, the tool enables reading Konkani content in
Devanagari and Kannada, but it has to be perfected. The second part
involves using a base script (Devanagari or Kannada) to change content into
other reader-preferred scripts, which is yet to be done.*
*
*
*MIXED THOUGHTS*
*
*
*U.K.-based software developer Roshan Pai Ramesh has mixed thoughts on
whether the tool will help or obstruct the cause of Konkani in the long
term. While it fosters inclusiveness of scripts, which is good, it will
further add to the non-standardisation of the language.*
*
*
*“Devanagari as the single standard script is probably good for the Konkani
language in the long term. Not having a single standardised script hurts a
language's development when one sees the bigger picture,” he said.*
*
*
*Amir Elisha Ahroni, Israel-based software developer, linguist, and
participant at Wikimedia's India Hackathon 2011 held in Mumbai in November,
said Konkani was “particularly an interesting case” because no particular
script dominates and all the scripts are used by a significant number of
people.*
*
*
*“I strongly believe that all languages are equal and all languages must be
supported equally in all software. English is the most frequently used
language in software, but there's no reason why it should have any
exclusive privilege,” he said.*
*
*
*Besides a diaspora, Konkani has 3.6 million native speakers, said Mr.
Thottingal. People along the western coast, across religions, and tribes,
such as the Siddi, speak Konkani, said Gurudath Bantwalkar, Mangalorean
Wikipedian and Assistant Director, World Konkani Centre, Mangalore.*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
*The New Indian Express : " Malayalam Wikipedia gaining popularity"*
http://expressbuzz.com/states/kerala/malayalam-wikipedia-gaining-popularity…http://ibnlive.in.com/news/malayalam-wikipedia-gaining-popularity/218865-60…
(
Republication by CNN-IBN/ IBN Live)
*Malayalam seems to have more lovers in the virtual world. The activities
of Malayalam Wikipedia might surpass every literary movement in the state
so far. The Malayalam Wikipedia movement had been active with an avalanche
of information, especially in the last year.*
*
*
*As many as 5,755 new articles were added in 2011, making the total number
of articles 21,873. As many as 8,744 new members were added in the last
year alone.*
*The popularity of the movement is the effect of concerted effort of the
Wikimedians.*
*
*
*The community, which joins in the virtual world, has introduced a number
of activities such as ‘Wiki Grandhasala’, ‘Wiki Nikhandu’, Mapping,
development of one-line information and lot more. A number of workshops was
also organised throughout the state, making the movement more popular.*
*
*
* The Malayalam Wikipedia has the seventh largest collection of articles,
(21,873) in India. Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Bishnupriya Manipuri and
Bengali top the list with the highest number of articles.*
*The Wikimedians expect that the articles in Malayalam would reach 25,000
by the middle of this year. An online quiz was one of the programmes
conducted to popularise the movement. The programme began in October.*
*As part of the 10th anniversary, a project was mooted to add more
information to the one-line information.*
*
*
*Around 250 one-line informations were identified and around 80 were
developed. Malayalam wiki dictionary now has 71,184 definitions.*
*As many as 10,573 new definitions were added in 2011. Some definitions
were made more informative by uploading related photos.*
*Apart from Malayalam and English, the Malayalam wiki dictionary has
definitions of words in Tamil, Japanese, Hindi/ Sanskrit, Korean, Arabic/
Urdu, Chinese, French, Persian, Dutch, Hebrew, Bengali and Greek.*
*
*
*One of the innovative projects was ‘Malayalam Loves Wikipedia’ movement,
where Wikimedians could contribute relevant and copyright-free pictures of
individuals, objects, plants etc.*
*As part of this programme as many as 2,158 copyright-free pictures were
added to Wikipedia.*
*
*
* Ramesh N G, admin of Malayalam Wikipedia, who is an IT engineer based in
Bangalore said 2011 was an eventful year for Wikipedia.*
*
*
*“Earlier the contributors were mainly IT employees and NRKs. It has
changed. Now there are contributors from various fields such as medicine,
law, academics etc. This makes information more authentic. School students
actively got involved in programmes such as Wiki Grandhasala, which made
the movement even more popular among students,” Ramesh added.*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
Important Note : The publisher ( The New Indian Express ) of the above news
article owns the copyrights of the article / content. Request to kindly not
reproduce or circulate the content further. The information is only shared
only with an internal community who have been featured on this article.
All copyrights are duly acknowledged.
Hoi,
One of the changes since the original deployment of WebFonts is the
creation of user documentation on WebFonts. You will see this help text
when you click on the question mark in the WebFonts menu. This user
documentation is located on MediaWiki.org and, we have enabled the
Translate extension on MediaWiki so that the text can be translated.
Documentation and particularly user documentation benefits from being
available in "your" language. When a translation in your language is
available, it will be shown in your language when you arirve from a Wiki in
your language.
The text of the help text is not long and we are looking for people who try
out the translation extension on MediaWiki.org. We are interested in the
observations you make working on the translations. Our intention is to
build upon our experience with the help text of the WebFonts extension and
your input is therefore crucial for the help texts that we hope to provide
in the future.
Thanks,
Gerard
On 12/28/2011 05:30 AM, wikimediaindia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
> Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2011 11:02:13 +0530
> From: Srikanth Lakshmanan <srik.lak(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Pune hackathon scheduled 10-12
> February 2012
> To: Wikimedia India Community list
> <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CA+30aUPJjZG6Uzak-5wgZyVoV=w6vgfkepi5wG5wB3JPH+VEVA(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 01:12, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <
> parakara.ghoda(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > If you look at it that way, Coimbatore deserves one too. Best, we
>> > contact the foundation and suggest this.
>> >
> Coimbatore just had one. Yuvipanda was there for 1 day mediawiki workshop.
> Read the below, also applies to you and anyone who feels the same.
>
>
>> > On 12/28/11, ansuman <ansumang(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > > No such events in Bangaluuruu :(
>> >
> Well, I have to agree,it was pointed out and something may happen soon. But
> then there was a track at FOSS.IN 2010 (a year back). But wait, did you
> wait Wikimania at come to your hometown for you to start Wikipedia editing?
> No no? So go and get started[1], stay at IRC #mediawiki, *work on
> something* be it small or big, know how mediawiki (or other technology
> infra beyond it) works, ask for help and people are more than willing to
> help and keep doing it. If you feel you could help on organizing one, get
> enough "seeds" (Mediawiki seasoned folks) and be bold and do it, even if
> its on a smaller scale.
>
> /me holds the temptation to announce something related.
>
> Sumana/Santhosh/Yuvi,
>
> You may want to add more?
>
> [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_become_a_MediaWiki_hacker
>
> -- Regards Srikanth.L
Thank you, Srikanth L. I very much appreciate your note here.
Who can speak for the chapter in terms of what plans Wikimedia India has
for organizing technical events? I do not want to step on any toes! :-)
In the fiscal year 2011-2012, the Wikimedia Foundation engineering
department has budgeted for 6 hackathons -- some we directly organize,
some we don't (but we still send several engineers). I believe these
are those events:
* Developer days alongside Wikimania
* New Orleans hackathon
* Mumbai hackathon
* San Francisco hackathon
* Pune hackathon
* Wikimedia Germany developers' meeting
So I do not think Wikimedia Foundation will organize any additional
technical events before the end of June 2012.
As you can see at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_developer_meetings there are
other events where people can learn together and work together on
Wikimedia technical topics.
I hope and expect that, as time goes on, there will be many local and
regional MediaWiki user groups and trainings and workshops and
hackathons, organized by local developers. I'd like more face-to-face
opportunities for interested developers in many areas, and I can provide
advice, training materials, pins and stickers, and publicity. I've also
reached out to the Wiki Academy organizers in India to ask them to
provide participants with information about MediaWiki.
Any volunteer can put on a hackathon. Lewis Cawte, a teenager,
organized his first event ever in November (the Brighton hackathon in
the UK). So be bold and organize an event in Bengaluru! And thanks to
Yuvi for heading an event in Coimbatore.
But more important than in-person events is followup. Many interested
volunteers need mentorship -- code review, troubleshooting, feedback,
and encouragement -- as they grow into contributors. I don't think our
mentorship pipeline is very strong right now. Patches from new
contributors languish for months before experienced MediaWiki developers
review them. Inexperienced developers write to me and I don't have many
candidates to delegate them to. If you are willing to volunteer as a
mentor for a new Wikimedia technologist, please let me know. Right now,
Yuvi and Srikanth Logic are the Indian mentors I know of. Are there others?
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Volunteer Development Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
Heya, I think it is time to make a clear distinction between FOSS and
Wikipedia out here. Wikipedia is NOT FOSS and FOSS is NOT Wikipedia.
Only the basic ideology is the same, nothing else. Several of us,
including Me, Pradeep have been victims of FOSS activism, both on the
list and off the list. Wikipedia so't wholely reliant on FOSS, and
will never be. I don't mean to offend anyone but this is it. Please
comment.
--
Regards,
Srikanth Ramakrishnan,
Sathyamangalam-Gobichettipalayam Star Gazers Gang, Ukkadam, Coimbatore.
My Commons uploads, now exceeding 75.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/Rsrikanth05
Hi ,
In case you haven't seen this : Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Reports
*Wikipedia Page Views Per Country* - Overview
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerCountryO…
Only 1.9 % of traffic for Wikimedia Projects is from India. ( 13th
position)
*Page Views Per Wikipedia Language*
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerLanguage…
>From India :
English (en) - 3.7 %
Simple English (simple) - 5.9 %
Hindi (hi) - 86.5 %
Tamil (ta) - 60.5 %
Malayalam (ml) - 66.3 %
Telugu (te) - 79.5 %
Bengali (bn) - 17 %
Urdu (ur) -6.1
Kannada (kn) - 79.3 %
Gujarati (gu) - 76.1 %
Nepali (ne) -15.3 %
Kapampangan (pam) 7.6 %
Marathi (mr) 88.1
Sanskrit (sa) - 55.9 %
Fiji Hindi (hif) - 23 %
Punjabi (pa) -47 %
Assamese (as) -25.9
Oriya (or) - 53.5%
Bihari (bh) - 26.9 %
Setswana (tn) - 8.2 %
Pali (pi) - 5.2 %
Nepal Bhasa (new) -21.6 %
This also gives some idea of where the traffic to Indic language Wikipedias
are coming from.
Stats of some of Indic languages like Bhojpuri, Bishnupriya Manipuri
, Kashmiri ,Sindhi are missing though.
*Page Edits Per Wikipedia Languages*
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageEditsPerLanguage…
>From India :
English (en) -3.5 %
Tamil (ta) - 51.3 %
Persian (fa) -0.9 %
Simple English (simple) 2.7 %
Wishes if it included more of Indian languages.
And the *India Report Card*
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN_India/ReportCardIndia.htm
Regards
Tinu Cherian