Last month the government ofTamil Nadu, an urbanised state in southern India, held acontest for college students to expand theTamil Wikipedia. Along with a graphic design contest for high school students, it aimed to introduce young people to modernIndic computing ahead of theWorld Classical Tamil Conference organised by the Tamil Nadu government, and the co-located annual IT expo, theTamil Internet Conference, to be held in June. The Tamil Wikipedia has 22,000 articles and some extremely committed editors, but its existence is not well-publicised in the Tamil community. The current annual growth of just 3,000 articles a year shows the significant opportunities for expanding the rates of participation (seeSignpost coverage). TheTelugu Wikipedia has twice as many articles, despite roughly the samenumber of native speakers of both languages. The Tamil Nadu government is hoping for 30,000 to 40,000 new articles to be uploaded when the contest closes on 30 April.
Update: the closing date has been extended two weeks.
Orientation programs were run atLoyola College in Chennai to teach participants how to write standard wiki articles. The best entries, selected by a jury of Wikipedia editors, will receive prizes and certificates from the government.
The contest went unnoticed on the main Wikipedia forums. Anannouncement was made on the Wikimedia India mailing list and ablog was used to post media coverage, but no updates were posted on the Foundation mailing list. Within India it received attention due to the involvement of Kanimozhi in this year's Tamil Internet Conference.M. K. Kanimozhi MP – a former journalist who has championed Tamil literature since entering politics – joinedP. A. Aruna, the state IT Minister, on the organising committee. One Indic computing expert said the Tamil Wikipedia is "gaining good traction and patronage".[1]The Hindu reported this is the first time a state government has promoted local content in Wikipedia.
The deadline for article submission in Tamil Wikipedia Contest has been extended to May 15. And there has been only 2000 submissions so far.--Sodabottle (talk)15:38, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm.. Based on what I can gather from Google translate, the Italian article says nothing about the Catholic Church sex scandal.SamuellLift me up or put me down20:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ganesh, I find the news report on Tamil Wiki contest highly biased, having incorrect information and unnecessarily negative in tone. It would have been nice if the SignPost reporters had contacted any of the Tamil Wikipedia contributors for fact checking before publishing this. It will be good to allow us to improve the news report now. Below is a better and updated version of the article:
The Government of Tamil Nadu, an urbanised state in southern India, is running a contest until May 15th for college students and the general public to expand the Tamil Wikipedia. Currently, The Tamil Wikipedia has 22,000+ articles. Along with a graphic design contest for high school students, it aimed to introduce young people to modern Indic computing ahead of the Tamil Internet Conference, to be held in June.
Orientation programs were run at Loyola College in Chennai to teach participants how to write standard Wiki articles. The best entries, selected by an international jury of academicians and professionals, will receive prizes and certificates from the government.
This is the first time a state government has promoted local content in Wikipedia.
Thanks--Ravishankar (talk)03:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
