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

Malayalam News



 * Malayalam Wikimedians conducted the "10th Anniversary of Wikipedia" celebrations and "8th Anniversary of Malayalam Wikipedia" celebrations in Kannur on 2011 January 15. The event was organised with the support of the Kannur District Library Council and Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishat (Kannur District Committee). The meeting started with Kannur District Library Council Secretary P. K. Baiju welcoming all. Ex Kerala University Vice-Chancellor and Social Worker Dr. B. Iqbal inaugurated the event by delivering his speech online. Dr. Mahesh Mangalat, a language computing researcher and a teacher from Mahe MG College presided over the function. In association with this celebration, a study class and discussions on Malayalam Wikipedia and free information were also conducted. The audience was also briefed about the sister concerns of Wikipedia. The participants expressed their delight after the function on knowing how to edit in Wikipedia and how to be part of the community.


 * Around 14 Malayalam Wikimedia workshops were conducted during the period 2010  October to 2011 May in various districts of Kerala and in neighboring  states. Out of these, 12 were in Kerala, one was in Madurai and another  one was in Bangalore. In Kerala study classes were conducted In the  districts of Kasargod, Kannur, Kozhikode, Malappuram,Thrissur, Palakkad,  Ernakulam, Kottayam, Kollam, Alappuzha, and Thiruvananthapuram.


 * Malayalam Wikimedians conducted an event called Malayalam loves Wikimedia from 2011 April 2 to April 25 to encourage and educate Malayalam Wikipedia users to contribute to Wikimedia Commons. Through this event we aimed at contributing more copyleft informative images to Wikimedia Commons. The event was covered in mainstream media as well. There was overwhelming participation, and Malayalam Wikipedians contributed over 2155 images to Wikimedia Commons.


 * Malayalam Wikimedian Junaid developed a MediaWiki extension called Narayam which helps Malayalam Wikipedia users to type Malayalam in  Wikipedia without using any external tools. With this extension, users  are able to type Malayalam in almost all text boxes of Malayalam Wiki  projects. Later this tool was extended to be used with Wikipedias of other Indian languages.

Malayalam Wikipedia

 * On 2010 December 21, the day of Malayalam Wikipedia's 8th anniversary, Malayalam Wikipedia crossed the 16,0000 articles mark. On March 10, 2011, Malayalam Wikipedia crossed 17,000 articles.


 * On 2011 January 22, Malayalam Wikipedia crossed the 1 million edit mark. With this milestone, Malayalam Wikipedia became the first Indian Wikipedia to have over a million edits.


 * Malayalam Wikipedia started a project called Malayalam Wikipedia Map Project which aims at creating  open-source maps related to places and districts in Kerala, maintain  categories related to maps of Kerala, convert raster map images to  vector images and also to encourage new users in creating maps.

Malayalam Wikisource

 * Added Panchathanthram Kilippattu by Kunchan Nambiar to Wikisource
 * Efforts are in full swing to add Aithihyamala by Kottarathil Sankunni to Wikisource
 * Started adding the complete collection of Chattambi Swamikal to Wikisource
 * Aesop's fables are being made available a few at a time. Currently 38 fables are online . Many of them illustrated.

Malayalam Wikiquotes
It has to be stated at the outset that Malyalam WIKIQUOTE (mlwq) seems to  have the least participation among the various Malayalam Wikimedia  projects. At present there appears to be only a couple of active editors. In the last few months the wikiqoute homepage received a major facelift. The main subpages at present incude:


 * 1) Traditional proverbs
 * 2) Folk riddles
 * 3) Movies
 * 4) Literary works
 * 5) Themes
 * 6) Idioms
 * 7) similies and metaphors
 * 8) quotes from Famous personalities / scriptural quotes
 * 9) folk songs.

Of these, there have been inputs in the 1st and eighth categories. However, these too seem like single-handed efforts. It does appear that contributors to other wikimedia projects are not aware of the activities  and relevance of Malayalam Wikiquote! The traditonal proverbs section of Malayalam Wikiquote can definitely be said to be by far the largest and  most exhaustive repository of Malayalam quotes availabe on the internet  at present. However we have miles and miles to go. Malayalam has plenty more to offer in terms of quotes and the iceberg is buried far too deep  at present.

Malayalam Wiktionary
Malayalam Wikitonary aims to provide not just definitions, but also:


 * 1) examples of usage,
 * 2) related proverbs,
 * 3) quotations and citations using the said word,
 * 4) synonyms, antynomys ,
 * 5) dialectial/regional variations in usage

Towards this end ml wiktionary has made only small strides so far. The number of wiktionarians stands at 62, which is a mere increae of 3 during the period under review. Also the present database is a small 20MB, an increase of 5% from the previous year.

Entries currently are mainly one word or one sentence definitions. Particpation in this wikimedia project is abysmally low and seems mainly bot aided. Malayalm being a very synonym rich language, Wiktionary should have a great future, and it appears that there is no other source  on the internet that provides as much lexicographical information as ml  wikitionary.