Very touching .. Its awesome and great work and Its great to know that Satyasheelan has been acknowledged for his efforts.
Yet another great and inspiring work by Wikipedians :) On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 5:12 PM, Surya Prakash <suryasalem2...@gmail.com>wrote: > The only word I said after reading this was "WOW!" > > I appreciate Mr. Satyasheelan's efforts. In Tamil Nadu also, few (very few) > schools are using Tamil Wikipedia. (for usual children) > > Thank you Alex for sharing this story. :) > > *$U®¥∩* > http://goo.gl/RoMyo.com <http://FirefoxSurya.blogspot.com> > http://about.me/suryaceg > > > > 2011/8/22 Shiju Alex <shijualexonl...@gmail.com> > >> Dear Wikimedians >> >> I would like share an unusual story (unusual - especially for Indic >> language wiki communities) that Malayalam wiki community had faced few >> months back. >> >> In the month of February 2011, I had received an SOS call from a school >> teacher (Satyasheelan) who is teaching at the Government School for the >> Blind in the Kasargod >> distric<http://www.webelmediatronics.in/brlads/directory_Kerala.htm>t >> of Kerala. Satyasheelan was seeking Malayalam wikipedian's support to fix >> few issues that he and his students faced with few Malayalam alphabets when >> they read Malayalam wikipedia using a speech synthesizing software called >> eSpeak <http://espeak.sourceforge.net/>. His phone call was surprise to >> us since Malayalam wikimedians were not aware that visually challenged >> people are using Malayalam wikipedia. (We were aware about the existence of >> a software by Santhosh (named Dhawni <http://dhvani.sourceforge.net/>) to >> read unicode Malayalam (and other Indic languages also) which is in its >> early stages of development). So Satyasheelan's call was surprising. >> >> After his phone call few Malayalam wikipedians (Junaid, Thachan Makan, and >> I) contacted Jonathan Duddington <http://sourceforge.net/users/jonsd>, >> the primary developer (?) of eSpeak, and we worked with him to fix the >> issues for Malayalam that Satyasheelan had pointed out. Jonathan fixed the >> issues pretty fast and later Satyasheelan informed us that now they are able >> to use Malayalam wikipedia without any issues. >> >> Later while we were planning for the 4th Malayalam wiki >> meetup<http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%80%E0%B4%A1%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AF:%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF_%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%BC%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%B8%E0%B4%82%E0%B4%97%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%82/4>(2011 >> July 11) at Kannur, we decided to invite Satyasheelan to conduct a >> session, since Malayalam wikimedians liked to hear the experience of >> students of Blind school (using Malayalam wikipedia). But when Satyasheelan >> came for the meetup we were surprised and taken aback when we learnt that >> Satyasheelan is also a visually challenged person. Few of the his colleagues >> (who are also visually challenged) also attended the meetup. Satyasheelan >> was accompanied by his son, Nalin. >> >> The meetup was attended by more than 80 Malayalam wikipedians. Few photos >> are available >> here<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Malayalam_Wikimeetup_4_-_Kannur_11Jun2011>. >> We are happy that Bishaka, Hisham, and Tory were kind enough to join us for >> this meetup. There were various programs conducted as part of this meetup >> (the report of the meetup is available at various locations (in Malayalam)). >> Definitely the highlight of the meetup was the demonstration by >> Satyasheelaman. So this mail is about that. >> >> Malayalam wikimedian Ajay Kuyiloor took extra efforts to record >> Satyasheelan's session. We are sharing an edited version of this session >> assuming that this information will help other Indic language wiki >> communities. >> >> The video of Satyasheelan's session is available here: * >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr1T3HeBTvU* The duration of the video is >> around 9 minutes. We specially thank Ajay Kuyiloor, Girish Mohan, and Jithin >> who worked on this video. We admit the low quality of video since we were >> not prepared for such a session. Inconvenience due to this is deeply >> regretted. >> >> Malayalam community is welcoming your comments regarding this story so >> that the discussion regarding this will benefit rest of the Indic wiki >> communities also. We are actually humbled by the fact that work we do in >> wikipedia is reaching out to people from all wakes of life. >> >> *NOTE:* Satyasheelan specially thanked Malayalam wikimedians for creating >> a special navigational >> template<http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%AB%E0%B4%B2%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%82:%E0%B4%85%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B7%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B2%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%82%E0%B4%9A%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95_%28%E0%B4%B8%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%97%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%82%29>for >> reaching out easily to wikipedia articles. I still remember in 2008 when >> Malayalam wikipedia user:Sadhik Khalid >> <http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%8D:Sadik_Khalid>created >> this template, some of us had doubted the need of such a template. Our doubt >> was, why such a template is required when users can reach out to articles >> easily using serach box. Now to our surprise we understood this template is >> very much useful for the visually challenged people (whom we never thought >> about before). >> >> Video of Satyasheelan's session is available here:* >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr1T3HeBTvU* >> >> Thanks >> >> Shiju Alex >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list >> Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimediaindia-l mailing list > Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l > > -- Rajesh Pandey
_______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
