CIS-A2K/Indic Languages/Gujarati/Discussions/2011

This page documents the discussions I have had with few Gujarati wiki community members. For these discussions, I reached out to everyone I knew and tried to connect with some I didn't through Email-user facility/talk pages. I have created this page based on those interactions. Since then, some community members whom I couldn't contacted earlier have asked to share their views. I request you to share them directly with me personally at shiju@wikimedia.org. I request you NOT to post directly on this page. (In the cases below, I have removed personal details to protect privacy, any personal remarks to try and keep the learning focused and the discussions constructive.) And most important is, all the initial discussions that happened in 2011 were to get the community started sharing the ideas. This will continue in 2012 and in coming years also. Please post your comment/opinion/views regarding the below discussions on the talk page of this page.

Urdu Pakistan

2011

Assamese

Summary of discussions

Discussion with Dhaval Vyas of Gujarati wiki

How you have reached Gujarati Wikipedia?

I don't quite exactly remember this, but probably it was like that, while searching I many times got english wikipedia in search results. Once, I was searching word 'Daal' in Gujarati unicode on google, and got wikipedia's page in one of the results. That was it, I saw that there was wiki in Gujarati as well, which was in very poor stage. Started writing, editing, etc.

Why you decided you must contribute to Gujarati Wikipedia)?

I definitely agree with you, but for me my mother tongue has always been my first priority, whether it is for verbal communication or written. Even, while reading general things also I prefer reading Gujarati. Hence simply started enriching my Gujarati wiki.

How active are you?

I am quite active, go on wiki few times a day. I sued to write on Gujarat and science. But now I mostly spend my time in editing, usually spelling and grammatical corrections. Reverting edits, removing gibberish, removing copyrighted content, etc.

Have you attended or conducted any outreach sessions? If yes, what was the outcome? What were the positives and negatives from these outreach programs?

Did carry out my first outreach session exclusively for Gujarati wikipedia, with Gujarati Sahitya Parishad in 2011 August. It attracted a good number of Sahityakars (literary scholars/writers/poets). People asked many questions about wiki's openness, copyright, etc. Major outcome of it is that Gujarati Sahitya Parishad as a voluntary organization working in the field of Gujarati Literature, has taken up tasks to enrich articles on literary scholars. They have shown interest in sharing some of the literature on wikisource as well. I am planning to conduct at least a couple more sessions soon.

Have you attended or organised community meet-ups? What was the outcome? What were the positives and negatives from these meet-ups?

I attend wiki meet-ups in London, where I live. these are quite informal meet-ups, where we discuss broadly on issues related to wiki, but not much regarding indic wikis.

What have been your experience in adding content or encouraging content on specific topics?

We mainly take english wiki as basis for Gujarati content, so that works well. Where I try to edit content related to Gujarati people, referencing is very difficult to get.

How are the technical challenges/issues been for your language? Now, is it easy for a new user to start contributing in wiki easily? How about interface translation and other things?

We have all frequently used messages translated. Contributing for new users is very easy as well.

How is the interaction between Gujarati wiki community members? Is there is enough interaction?

Gujarati community is quite interactive. We quite often discuss topics and collaboratively take discussions. I have always been asking community to vote and go by the decision (obviously of active contributors).