Submissions/Tamil WikiCulture and Outreach Experience

From Wikimania 2012 • Washington, D.C., USA

This is a rejected submission for Wikimania 2012.

Submission no.

84

Title of the submission
Tamil WikiCulture and Outreach Experience
Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation)
presentation
Author of the submission
C.R.Selvakumar
E-mail address
c.r.selvakumar@gmail.com
Username
C.R.Selvakumar
Country of origin
Canada
Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)
University of Waterloo, Canada
Personal homepage or blog
Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

In this presentation I would like to share my experience of interacting in Tamil Wikipedia, since May 2006, to highlight how a community of volunteers from several different countries (India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Canada, Norway, Germany) with divergent views on language and culture have come together to establish a vibrant community of volunteers to contribute, very successfully, in building the Wikipedia. Numerous vexing cultural issues, including linguistic variations among Tamil-speaking communities, lack of standards in terminology etc., have been successfully resolved or managed collectively through WikiCulture.

  • Author's direct outreach activities (outreach portal) in several countries such as India, Malaysia, Canada to spread the message of Wikipedia and to get people involved in building the Wikipedia will be described and analyzed.
  • Author’s experience in attracting a remarkable donation of more than 100,000 words to Tamil Wiktionary, which had catapulted Tamil to the top 10 Wiktionaries in the world, and the Tamil Nadu Government sponsored Wikipedia Article writing competition (Competition Portal) will be shared.
  • Relevant key results of author's papers on Tamil Wikipedia in international conferences held in 2011 in University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia ("Infitt conference") and Kuala Lumpur (on e-learning) will be expanded here.
  • Several issues in engaging Tamil-speaking people to further the Wikipedia project and its sister projects would be discussed. Many are related to diverse cultural and social issues, economic accessibility issues, awareness and eduction issues.
  • A brief qualitative discussion of whether Metcalfe's law is applicable in Tamil context. Are there some time constants? Critical phases?
  • Several major areas of improvement in Tamil Wikipedia and sister projects would be discussed.

Reference:

  1. C.R. Selvakumar, Collaborative Authoring: Tamil Wikipedia (In Tamil), Paper G2, Infitt Conference TI 2011, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,June 17-19, 2011
  2. C.R. Selvakumar, "A method of E-Learning through Wiki technology for Science, Mathematics and Applied Sciences in Tamil" (rough translation of the title; article in Tamil), Proceedings of the Conference on Innovative Thoughts-Education, Management, Arts, Science, Linguistics, Volume-3, pp. 352-363, held in University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, August 12-14, 2011.
Track
  • WikiCulture and Community; Research, Analysis, and Education


Length of presentation/talk
25 Minutes
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
Yes
Slides or further information (optional)
Special request as to time of presentations
None


Interested attendees

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  1. You got government support for a Wikipedia project? Amazing! Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:56, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Would be good if you could add in a few links to the things you mention in the abstract (e.g. to the contest). -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 00:40, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  3. I am very interested in this talk. Having seen Selva's interesting observations on the systemic and philosophical aspects of wiki projects as well as data analytics, I am sure this talk will be very useful. I will attend this talk online. -- Sundar
  4. Looks very interesting to me. CT Cooper · talk 17:07, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  5. I am interested in this talk. Mayooranathan (talk) 18:15, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Logicwiki (talk) 09:03, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  7. 71.163.207.19 14:40, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 19:41, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Balajijagadesh (talk)
  10. Selvakumar's outreach efforts are unique in the regard that they are cross-national and targetted scholars. It will be interesting to know the lessons learned from him.--122.169.135.237 11:20, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Graham87 (talk) 13:27, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Add your username here.