Tell us about Bengali Wikipedia

This page belongs to the project Tell us about your Wikipedia.

Bengali Wikipedia

Bengali (বাংলা) – bn
Interview with Rama's Arrow and Ragib from India and Bangladesh, Wikipedia Weekly: 15

Questionaire

Contributors

Wikimedia Statistics can be difficult to interprete. What is your impression, how many steady contributors do you have?

If you mean daily or weekly contributors, we have about 10 - 15.

Are your contributors mostly native speakers?

Yes, all of them are native speakers.

Where do your contributors live (regions/country)?

Half to 75% are in Bangladesh, 20% are in West Bengal, India. The rest 5% are in USA and other countries.

How common is it that your contributors meet in real life?

Several times every year, there is a Wiki-meetup in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Other Wikipedias

Do you have special contacts with another Wikipedias (maybe in related languages)?
Do you translate a lot from other Wikipedias? Which ones?

From English wikipedia.

Organization and support

Is there a Wikimedia chapter in your country? How does your language relate to it?

~~No.~~ Yes.

Are there work groups in other organizations about Wikipedia?

Yes, "Bangladesh Open Source Network" (http://bdosn.org) has an active participation in the development of Wikipedia. It has organized several workshops and other events to popularize Bengali wikipedia.

Your Wikipedia and the linguistic community

Is there a language institution for your language, like an Academy, or a club of people interested in your language? Do you have contact with them?

There are two: in Bangladesh, we have Bangla Academy. In West Bengal, there is Pachimbanga Bangla Akademi. No contact with them though.

Who (else) supports you?
How looks your public outreach for your edition? Do you have flyers, give lectures, trainings etc.?

Flyers, blogs, mailing lists, day-long workshops etc have been arranged.

Do you get feedback from readers?
What other encyclopedias exist in your language?

Banglapedia.

Content

Does your edition concentrates on certain topics, like your region and language, or Latin Wikipedia on Roman history and Christianity?

Yes, on Bangladesh and West Bengal, the two regions of the greater region of Bengal.

Did your edition enjoy text donations, for example from older encyclopedias?

No.

Language

Is there a generally accepted norm about your language (spelling, dictionary, pronounciation)?

For spelling, there is the Bangla Academy dictionary (Bangladesh) and the Samsad Bengali dictionary (West Bengal). For spelling conventions (e.g. for foreign word transliteration), there are some guidelines from Bangla Academy and also from Calcutta University.

How do you deal with different spellings, dialects etc. (like B.E. lift and A.E. elevator)?

We use the usual convention followed in case of British vs American English spellings/terms. For articles related to Bangladesh and that are written by Bangladeshi wikipedians, words and spellings common in Bangladesh are used. Same applies for topics related to India / West Bengal. The differences are minor and apply to only a few cases.