Wikipedia associations to start in colleges to popularise Tulu and Kannada

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, July 4,2017: With the aim of making Tulu and Kannada wikipedia thrive with more articles, Karavali Wikimedians, a registered body of Wikipedia writers based in the city, will open Wikipedia associations in colleges in the coastal belt from this month.

Karavali Wikimedians is affiliated to Wikimedia Foundation, San Francisco, U.S. U.B. Pavanaja, Secretary, Karavali Wikimedians told The Hindu that now Kannada Wikipedia had about 22,000 articles and Tulu about 1,200 articles.

Under the credit based semester scheme, students in colleges under Mangalore University enjoyed 50 marks per semester for extra and co-curricular activities. The Karavali Wikimedians would guide the faculty and students from the colleges in starting and managing Wikipedia associations. Contributing articles to Wikipedia would also help students academically as they could earn marks for extra and co-curricular activities, he said.

Secretary Pavanaja who is also the administrator for Kannada and Tulu Wikipedia and Editor of vishvakannada.com said that the first such association would be opened in Alva’s College in Moodbidri as the college has shown interest. Those colleges interested to open the associations could contact over pavanaja@vishvakannada. com. Vishvanatha Badikana, president, Karavali Wikimedians, said that the Wikimedians has begun organising a series of monthly workshops in colleges to train students in writing for Wikipedia.

The first two-day workshop of the series was conducted in Ramakrishna Pre-University College in the city in May . The second workshop for three days was concluded in the same college in June. Kishore Kumar Rai Sheni, Principal of the college and Treasurer of the Karavali Wikimedians said that the college management has been providing its computer laboratory and premises free for Wikipedia writers. In all, 25 writers participated in the two workshops. Mr. Pavanaja said that there were guidelines, policies and rules for writing to Wikipedia. Copyright should not be infringed upon while writing and uploading photographs and illustrations. A writer should be aware of these rules. Karavali Wikimedians have framed the “fair use policy” for deleting articles, for uploading photographs, audio and video contents, for writing articles and other aspects.

He said that the writers have planned to organise Photowalks in the coastal belt having rich heritage. It was for documenting them in Wikipedia.