As a small editor on kn-wp, I find that the people using the kn-wp lack basic rules of editing wikipedia since I often see that :-
- Only the same editors edit there. Newbies are a lot less. - The newbies are in a large number - IP addresses only and they never want to create their own account - The kn-wikipedia is sometimes used for advertisement of people ( say for ex: I need money urgently for operation etc., OR for schools where they start the article with their school name say this school is the best school in that particular town) - The other thing is that some of the editors who have created accounts, upload pics they have taken on kn-wikipedia itself without any rights posted. - Also the editors or IP addresses who edit never observe messages sent to them. I was tired of informing people the rightful duties of an editor and left that job. Eventhough I edit a lot on sa-wp and sa-ws... My native language is Kannada., I felt about the state of kn-wp seeing all those articles on newspapers. I only want kn-wp community to take help from people who edit wikipedia (maye in any other language) also. The administrators and b'cats of kn-wp have all "slept off" or "retired" or "busy" (with their own work) after the initial hard work. I saw HPN sir on IRC (#wikimedia-in) and talked to him but their was no response at all.... WAKE UP FROM SLUMBER KANNADA ADMINISTRATORS & B'CATS...... This is a very kind request from a kind kannadiga.......... On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 4:02 PM, Shiju Alex <sh...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > I think there are 3 issues that this newsarticle raises. > > The first is the is the desperate urgency for community building. > Community building is a combination of: > > - increased community communication (in increasing order of > importance: events, mailing lists, talk pages, meet-ups and village pumps) > - stronger community collaboration (small wikiprojects starting of > with even 2 editors and on virtually any topic of interest whether it is a > subject area like health articles or a task like translate articles > clean-up) > - more frequent and impactful outreach (including targeting the most > suitable audience profile for outreach, combination of classroom & hands-on > editing experience during the workshop, staying in touch with newbies after > the session, hand-holding newbies during their first 100 edits and > integrating newbies into the existing community) > - reaching out retired editors - which is a particularly severe > problem in Kannada (and Telugu) because active editor numbers have declined > (or not grown) over the past 1 year. This is particularly alarming given > the small community size. Also, the reason why these editors retired is > not because of technology but a whole host of other reasons (including > changing personal circumstances, lack of an adequate sense of community, > lack of collabaration inside wiki, lack of pride of projects, over usage of > bots, and so on. > > The second is that while there are very real issues that the Google > translate project created (some of which were outlined below), the biggest > problem is that it focuses on content and not community. This is a similar > problem to using bots to create content - which has been shown time and > time again to downright harmful to projects and hence to communities. On > the specific issue of Google translate project, it also represents a solid > opportunity to get existing editors (and maybe some newbies as well) to get > involved with the clean up. Some editors in Kannada wikipedia have already > started preparatory work on this - and there is great potential in this. > It is a great way of building the community through collaboration around a > common mission. > > The third issue is on technology. I know that - historically for PCs - > there have been issues around fonts, browsers, OS, and so on. However, I > think these are becoming less critical as technical developments have > resolved many issues. (This is evidenced by the increased Kannada presence > in the blogosphere as well as on sites like facebook and twitter.) Having > said that, editing wikipedia - in any language - does require certain basic > technical comfort especially when one clicks on "edit" and sees the HTML > mark-ups that pop up. To that extent, I would suggest that we don't focus > too much on the technical challenges but place all our emphasis on > community building. According to me technical challenge is not a major > issue for most of the major indic languages (when it come to PCs). And now > it is time for us to come out this excuse and contribute to our own > language wikipedia. > > Omshivaprakash is right when he says that too few knew that they can edit. > To address this, a combination of outreach and press coverage is essential > to convey this message. On press coverage, it is tempting to put out > stories that a particular language has achieved a milestone (for example, > 10,000 article milestone.) is great but the even more useful ones are > stories that mention that anyone can edit, give the very basics of editing, > suggest specific areas where readers might be interested and give them > contact details in case they are interested. > > In all this, do keep in mind that readership of Indic language wikipedias > is growing exponentially. The audience is there now! We need to get the > community built so that the can edit the content. > > Thanks > Shiju > > > > > > > > On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Ashwin Baindur <ashwin.bain...@gmail.com > > wrote: > >> >> As a person working in the relevant field, we would welcome Shiju's >> comments on the article, its facts, proposed steps by the editors mentioned >> and what Kannada Wikipedia needs for revival. >> >> Warm regards, >> >> Ashwin Baindur >> ------------------------------------------------------ >> >> >> >> On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 11:00 AM, Tinu Cherian (Wikimedia India) < >> tinucher...@wikimedia.in> wrote: >> >>> *The Hindu : "The struggles of keeping Kannada Wikipedia afloat"* >>> >>> http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/article2909005.ece >>> >>> *In the world of online Kannada content, blogs may be thriving but >>> Wikipedia is struggling. The reasons vary from technology barriers to lack >>> of contributors, say Wikipedians. >>> >>> While there has been a surge in Kannada content in the last two years, >>> contributors to the language have been grappling with technology barriers. >>> >>> After floundering for years, the Kannada Wikipedia picked up with font >>> availability, said Hari Prasad Nadig, a Kannada Wikipedian. The >>> software to add to Kannada Wikipedia is not so user-friendly, and only >>> geeks can edit it properly. >>> >>> Unlike English, which has a large community, technology issues are >>> glaring in smaller communities. “Growth is slow with respect to technology >>> in smaller communities,” he said. The lack of a good Unicode font has been >>> a persisting problem so the reader ends up seeing boxes instead of Kannada >>> text. After trying to write using the ‘Thunga' font, which had problems >>> with vowels, besides other bugs, today, ‘Kedage' is the most complete font, >>> though issues remain with this one too, Mr. Nadig said. >>> >>> Besides, various operating systems provide different levels of support >>> for the script. “All these small factors together discouraged people from >>> contributing. It's not that people don't want to use Kannada on the Net. >>> Traffic on the Net is very high; there is Kannada on Facebook and Twitter >>> too,” he said. >>> >>> Another challenge is writing and adding quality content. “The community >>> has to grow if Kannada Wikipedia is to grow,” he said. The quality of >>> content also matters. One person adding thousands of ‘stubs' on, say, >>> Kannada films, does not help the reader, and in fact, drives them away from >>> the site. Also, Kannada Wikipedia needs “starter” articles, to get people >>> reading before they can start adding content, he said. >>> >>> In order to grow, Kannada Wikipedia requires an active, organic >>> community, which is not imposed through a catalyst of paid content >>> creators. Once, Google started a tool that had machine-translated content >>> improved by manual translations. Yet the Kannada content was “looking like >>> spam. They (manual translators) didn't understand markup, templates; (it >>> was) all malformed”, he said. >>> >>> An observation about contributors is that people in metros prefer >>> writing to the English Wikipedia though they know Kannada and are >>> tech-savvy. “Bangalore has less than 10 people writing to Kannada >>> Wikipedia,” he said. >>> >>> Omshivaprakash, Chair for Kannada Special Interest Group for Wikipedia, >>> said people are not aware that Kannada Wikipedia now has simple tools to >>> add content. He said “Wiki academies” would be set up to train people on >>> adding Kannada content. “Everyone complains that the quality of Kannada >>> Wikipedia is low, but they do not know that they can edit it themselves,” >>> he said.* >>> >>> Regards >>> Tinu Cherian >>> pr...@wikimedia.in >>> http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news >>> >>> Important Note : Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes >>> only. The publisher ( The Hindu ) of the above news article owns the >>> copyrights of the article / content. All copyrights are duly acknowledged. >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Wikimedia >>> Chapter, India Member's Group. >>> To post to this group, send email to wmin-memb...@googlegroups.com >>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >>> wmin-members+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com >>> For more options, visit this group at >>> http://groups.google.com/group/wmin-members?hl=en?hl=en >>> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list >> Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimediaindia-l mailing list > Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l > > -- Regards, Abhiram
_______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
