Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/Wikipedia's 15th anniversary is marked by translating good articles into Bengali

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  • Wikipedia's 15th anniversary is marked by translating good articles into Bengali
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  • Together with the global communities, Wikimedia Bangladesh also organized a series of programs to mark Wikipeda's 15th anniversary. As part of the anniversary celebration, couple of events were organized that were hugely successful and appreciated by the local community. Good article contest, Good article edit-a-thon day and Wikipedia workshops for University students were notables events among them. Finally, a gala event was held on 15th January 2016 at Bishwo Shahitto Kendro in Dhaka to celebrate the special day.

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Bangladeshi Wikimedians at Wikipedia 15 good article edit-a-thon and adda, Chittagong. Photograph by Motiur Rahman Oni, Wikimedia Commons, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0.

 
Bangladeshi Wikimedians are celebrating Wikipedia's 15 Birthday in Dhaka. Photograph by Md Saiful Islam Khan (Aopu), Wikimedia Commons, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0..

On January 15th, 2016, Free encyclopedia — Wikipedia — completed its 15 years journey. To celebrate this special day, a good article writing competition was organized in Bangla Wikipedia by Wikimedia Bangladesh. Bangla Wikipedia has a total article count of 42,000+. Among these, only a handful of articles have been reviewed as good articles. In an attempt to enhance the content quality in the Bangla Wikipedia, the competition was organized which aimed at increasing the number of good articles. The competition continued from 1st of November 2015 to 10th of January 2016. The events received press coverage from around the country, including newspapers like Prothom Alo and The Daily Star.

In this contest, Bangla Wikipedians have fully translated about 600 good articles from English Wikipedia. A total of 550 Bengali speaking registered users from Bangladesh, India, Italy and South Korea participated in this two months long competition and 130 of them were awarded Wikipedia Badge, wristband, USB flash drive and T-shirts by Wikimedia Bangladesh. A reviewer panel comprising 35 experienced and regular users evaluated the translated articles. Among all the participants of the competition, 86% were new in Wikipedia and contributed for the first time, 14% were frequent editors and 12% were female editors. This contest has increased the number of good quality articles in Bangla Wikipedia and, at the same time, engaged a huge number of new users in Wikipedia through this contest. S.M. Monir created the highest number of articles and was awarded the first prize, a bicycle, and a certificate in the 15th year celebration program.

 
Group photo of the Wikimedians during Wikipedia's 15 birthday celebration at Bishwo Shahitto Kendro in Dhaka. Photograph by Kanon Ahammad, Wikimedia Commons, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0..

Good article edit-a-thon day was another event of this series of programs. Five edit-a-thons were organized in three different cities, which are - Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong division. The aim of the edita-thons was to increase the number of good articles in Bangla Wikipedia. As a result of these edita-thons, the number of good articles are increased from 14 to 60. Besides those events, Wikipedia Workshop were held in three different Universities of Bangladesh. On an average, about 50 students attended in each workshop. The main goal of the workshops was to create awareness about Wikimedia projects. Another goal was to introduce Wikipedia (especially Bangla Wikipedia) to the audience and show the attendees how to edit the articles and contribute photographs to Wikimedia Commons.

The series programs ended on 15th January 2016 at Bishwo Shahitto Kendro in Dhaka through the celebration of Wikipedia's birthday. Noted filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki was present at the program as a special guest.

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Nahid Sultan, Secretary
Wikimedia Bangladesh

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