Template:WikiPatrika/2011-06/Community News/ne

General
Nepali  Wikipedia was started on June 2, 2002. However, there was not much  progress till September 2010, and it had only  5000 articles in September 2010. However, this Wikipedia got a fresh lease of life after September 2010, and by  5th November 2010, the  number of articles  crossed the margin of   10,000 as a result of hard work of Wikipedians. Now it has 16130+  articles. It has 6,280+ registered users and 183,790+ total edits till   23.5.2011. According to the article count, active users and edits,  the  wiki is in the 90th position.

Nepali Wikipedia

 * Nepali Wikipedia has 183,796 total edits and there are around 86 active users.
 * This year a programme was conducted in Kathamandu at Pulchauk, the programme was attendend by scholars, scholars of Sanskrita language, Developers, Wikipedians.This programme was hosted by  Ganesh Paudel
 * Mediawiki Interface language is being corrected and translated to make new progress.
 * RajeshPandey has been nominated to attend Wikimania programme this year.
 * The main page has been given a new look this year. Now it has featured articles, News, Do you know?, Events in this month, This month's picture and Calendar and all are updated in a timely manner.
 * The numbers of active users has increased from 30+ to 86  this year.
 * Creation of articles about Districts of of India, Universities of India is already in progress. Creation of articles on science topics has been initiated in the month of March and a dozens of articles have been created newly and many other existing pages were enriched with data.
 * A software WikipediaHindiNepali translator was developed by RajeshPandey a sysop and was a successfully used to translate Hindi articles into Nepali.
 * A project has already been started on writing articles on ancient books and Puranas.
 * The   Nepali Wiki Embassy has been made easier to help other users.  This will    allow other users who do not know Nepali to get help in their language  and would be a central place for resources to help with cross-language    issues, site-wide policy and software decisions that affect all of us  and inter-language linking.
 * Our strategic plan is to get the target of 20,000 articles by the end this year.
 * A project has been initiated to complete the stub articles.

Nepali Wiktionary

 * Bhawani Gautam has made writing tools(Devanagari script) for Wiktionary. Till the end of last year the users were facing problems while writing Nepali. Now we have overcome this problem. As of 22 May 2011 there are 4,607+ articles and 711+ registered users and there are 12,253+ edits.
 * Our strategic plan is add more words to fulfill the need of Nepali Dictionary as there is no other on line dictionary in Nepali language.
 * A project has been initiated to complete the stub articles.

Nepali Wikibooks

 * Bhawani Gautam has made writing tools(Devanagari script) for Wikibooks. Till the end of last year the users were facing problems while writing Nepali. Now we have overcome this problem. As of 22 May 2011 there are 49+ articles and 573+ registered users and there are 4,339+ edits till 18th May 2011 in Wikibooks. As of 18th May 2011, there are 49+ valid articles and around 573+ registered users in Nepali Wikibooks. There are 6 active users are active in an average in Wikibooks.

Meetings and Wiki meet ups:
For the 10th Birthday of Wikipedia, Nepali Wikipedians met at the Yalamaya Kendra and talked about Wikipedia. New articles were added. Rajesh Pandey released a the new version of software called Nepali Wikipedia Translator.

Wiki meet up at Open Learning Exchange.
Wiki meet ups used to be organized at Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya(MPP) which   is very near to the Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk and Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya which used to be one of the pioneers of Nepali computing and supporter of open source software. People would just gather at MPP and start a meeting. Some of the previous meetings were organized at MPP where participants were Rajesh Pandey, Khem Raj   Bhattarai, Ganesh Paudel, Shankar Paudel, Eukesh Ranjit, Kedar Sharma. On April 26th Wikipedians met at the Open Learning Exchange, Sanepa, Kathmandu, Nepal. The participants were Abhishek Singh, Subir Pradhananga, Ravi Karmacharya, Khem Raj Bhattarai, Ganesh Paudel, Rajesh Pandey and Ramesh Pandey. Discussions were related to how to move forward and about the status of Wikimedia  Nepal. Ravi Karmacharya enlightened the audience about organisation structures and the motive behind the Wikimedia Nepal chapter.

The   users also discussed administrator’s policies and how users  should be dealt to attract new users. The meeting focused around the topic of how to increase users. Ideas about placing government articles on Wikipedia were also discussed. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia   projects can also be used in the government projects that  have been   setting up tele-centers in villages. Wikimedia can facilitate with   content for the tele-centers.

Pratibha Manch
A Pratibha  Manch (प्रतिभा मञ्च) programme was conducted At Rhenock BAC  in  Sikkim on 1st May 2011. Bhawani Gautam   requested and welcomed the participants to contribute on Wikipedia. The  programme was attended by Nepali writer and poets, a local government  official (B.D.O.) and about 20 numbers of local people (including   teachers and students of the locality).