Train-a-Wikipedian and policy discussion meetup in Hyderabad

tito — 2017-06-28T10:06:34Z

The first on-ground Train-a-Wikipedian and policy discussion meetup was conducted in Hyderabad on 15 May 2016. 14 editors from 5 Indian Wikimedia communities participated in this event.

A Train-a-Wikipedian and policy discussion event was conducted in Hyderabad on 15 May 2016. Tito Dutta of CIS-A2K joined as a resource person and Telugu Programme Associate Pavan Santosh coordinated the event.

Although the Train-a-Wikipedian program was launched in January 2016, this was the first on-ground workshop for Telugu Wikipedians. The event was organized at Golden Threshold campus, Hyderabad. 13 editors from 5 Indic Wikimedia communities participated in the event. Here is the list of the participants:

User:Meena gayathri.s (Telugu)
User:Ajaybanbi (Telugu)
User:Pranayraj1985 (Telugu)
User:Nrgullapalli (Telugu)
User:Rajasekhar1961 (Telugu)
User:Viswanadh (Telugu)
User:Kasyap (Telugu)
User:Vin09 (English, Telugu)
User:Sonalisubudhi122 (Odia)
User:Mouryan (Bengali)
User:Sakthi swaroop (English)
User:Yash.golechha (interested to contribute to Hindi and English Wikipedia)
User:Yohannvt (English, Wikimedia India representative)

Introduction

The day's program started with discussing and explaining the works CIS-A2K is currently doing to support Indian-language Wikimedia communities. This session was primary focused on introducing the Train-a-Wikipedian (TAW) program. There were a number of editors who either were not aware of TAW, or were attending a real-life session for the first time. The program's vision, working-process and syllabus were narrated in details so that those who were new to the program understand how TAW works better. They were also informed about the past sessions. As there were a few editors, who were very new to the world of Wikipedia, they were quickly introduced to Wikipedia's main components. User:Rajasekhar1961 discussed the basic structure of an article.

Train-a-Wikipedian: Hands-on activity

This was followed by a hands-on activity where the participants were asked to glance through random articles on Wikipedia and discuss the issues in the article. More than 20 articles from English and Telugu Wikipedia were read and the issues/concerns were listed. The new editors were asked to comment from their own perspective, and the experienced editors shared their views using Wiki-vocabulary. The aim of the activity was to make a list of issues Wikipedia articles generally have (such as prose style, article size, references) and try to discuss those with relevant policy or guideline, so that it becomes clearer that policies and guidelines are needed in every step of Wikipedia editing.

Policy discussion

After the hands-on session which ended with a sense that almost every Wikipedia-editing related issue to be directly related to one or another policy, the second session of the day, on policy discussion, started. In the beginning of this year CIS-A2K, —with the help of Indian Wikipedians—created an Indic Wikipedia Policies and Guidelines Handbook, discussing how to create Wikipedia policies and modify the existing ones, discussing on Village pump, consensus etc. The book's content was presented to the participants.

Right after this session the participants were divided into two groups with Telugu Wikipedians and non-Telugu Wikipedians, and two parallel activities were conducted. Telugu Wikipedians started discussing their Wikipedia's policy portal and with non-Telugu Wikipedians the Train-a-Wikipedian session was continued. Telugu Wikipedians discussed a number of policies and guidelines such as stub policy, notability of books, authors, academics, prose style, and, using honorifics etc. Telugu Wikipedians suggested that they should work on the policy portal on a regular basis. They proposed that for the policies where they already have consensus, they should try to work on at least policy in every 1-2 week(s). For other policies discussion should take place on the village pump on regular basis.

Train-a-Wikipedian: Tools and gadgets

Following the policy discussion, a second session of Train-a-Wikipedian was conducted where a few advanced tools and gadgets were discussed. Some of the tools, gadgets and topics discussed in this session are:

Google Books citation
Autofill option
Indian Newspaper search tool
Search Indian news website
Copyright violation tools (with and alert about Mirrors and forks)
QuickWikiEditor
ArticlePlaceHolder
UserScripts and how they help

The day's program ended with a general feedback-gathering on how the Train-a-Wikipedia program can be improved more in future.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/train-a-wikipedian-and-policy-discussion-meetup-in-hyderabad

Indian English Wikipedian Nvvchar completes 1500 Did You Know articles

tito — 2017-06-28T10:03:41Z

Indian English Wikipedian Nvvchar has completed 1500 Did you know articles. This is the second highest on English Wikipedia.

Indian English Wikipedian User:Nvvchar has completed 1500 Did you know (DYK) articles. DYK is a short piece of fact (hook) taken from Wikipedia's newest content and is showcased on the "Did you know" section on the Main Page. On English Wikipedia 18-24 hooks appear on the Main Page every day. Since mid-2012 Nvvchar has been diligently working on this DYK project and has created (or expanded) articles on a very wide range of subjects such as religion, history, geography, arts, literature, women's achievement, education etc.

On 27 July 2011 Nvvchar completed 500 DYK articles. On 23 August 2013 his 1000th DYK appeared on the Main Page. The DYK nomination and review process need a lot of effort and sometimes it takes weeks to fully finish the process. However after the 1000th DYK in August 2013, in just 2 years 8 months Nvvchar touched another milestone. On 26 April 2016, his 1500th DYK appeared on the Main Page of Wikipedia and the fact was from an article Rudra Mahalaya Temple, an ancient ruined temple located Sidhpur in the Patan district of Gujarat.

A few Wikipedians congratulated him for this achievement. User:Ijon, a Hebrew Wikipedian, appreciated him saying-

Thank you for the persistent and quiet work you do to contribute much-needed knowledge to Wikipedia!

User:Victuallers, an English Wikipedia administrator, wrote on Nvvchar's talk page-

Lets just guess that the average DYK gets read by 100 people - that means you have a readership of 150,000 people. I think its more like 1000 per DYK appearance so that means that your words have been read by over 1 million people and thats just on the first day of publication! There must be multi-millions of people who know a little more about Asian settlements, buildings, people and artefacts then they would have done without the efforts of Nvvchar. . . . . . Great respect for your efforts. Thanks from the Wiki and its many readers

As of 9 May 2016, Nvvchar has 1503 DYKs.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons