*An anonymous editor made this remark in Shiju's post: **I think a thousand short, unreferenced and well-formatted articles are better than a million long, translated articles translated from English Wikipedia.*
I think that the editor meant well but has not correctly understood the importance of referencing. No article is reliably useful if it is not referenced well, whether it is in English or in other languages or whether it is one of a thousand short Hindi articles written originally or a million articles machine-translated from English into Hindi. Referencing is the easiest way to improve an article's quality; it is much more useful for readers than better language or manual-of-style fixes, even more than adding images. *Another editor from Hindi Wikipedia got it right : **As another editor said "I feel presenting a project as a high-quality project is important for attracting more contributors to it".* On the other hand, I do not know whether high quality referencing is a priority to Indic-language Wikipedia editors as of now. In the few conversations I have had on such issues, referencing has not appeared as a topic of concern. This is probably due to the state of growth of these Wikipedias at this moment. When the Wikipedia is young, the focus is on growth, increasing number of editors and articles. When you grow to large sizes (as Hindi Wikipedia is on the verge of but not yet reached), quality increasingly becomes a prime concern not only of the users but also provides the most convenient deficiency for critics to use. It is here that English Wikipedia can help. Large numbers of English Wikipedia articles have verifiable references. These are a source of easily found references which when added will enhance the quality of any indic language article on the same subject. I certainly agree with the anonymous editor that machine translated articles are not the way to add value to any indic-language wikipedia but English Wikipedia is an undeniably an easy way to locate useful information, references and images to add to many Indic Wikipedia articles. There are many issues to consider. Would the indic language community like to retain the references in English, translate them or provide both original and translated versions of the same reference? Each of the extremely important cite templates which are available on English Wikipedia needs to be translated into Indic languages and added to each Wikipedia if not already done so. Most of all, editors need to be educated on the importance of proper referencing and inline referencing. Referencing is one of the best ways one can improve the overall quality of articles in Indic Wikipedias and the more the efforts in this direction, the better the Wikipedia will be. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur ------------------------------------------------------ On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 11:12 PM, Shiju Alex <sh...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Unfortunately this has not been going on recently >> however in the past there were several articles where more than 3 people >> would contribute constantly to bring it to a featured article >> level.........Hope we can see the same days again. > > > Hope those days will be back soon. Strengthening the community by bringing > back old experienced editors and retaining existing editors are the key. > For that focus need to be shifted to that direction. > > I remember in 2010 > January<http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/indian-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-2010-march/>Hindi > wiki was having approximately 50,000 articles and 50 active users. > Now 2 years down the line, we have more than 1 lakh > articles<http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/indian-language-wikipedia-statistics-2011-september/>, > but the number of active users is still 50. Considering the huge speaker > base of Hindi, it should have at least 1000 active users now. > > As we can see from the responses of the editors, most of them are not > happy with the results of google translation project or bot created > articles. As one editor said" > > I think that the articles translated using machine translation tools > should go under a rigorous review for style, quality and flow before being > made 'live'. A number of articles have been created on Hindi Wikipedia with > Google translation, but these serve no purpose. The style and the flow (and > the English text in untranslated templates, references section etc.) render > them of little interest to a native Hindi reader, and the unfixed errors > render them useless to Google (whose interest is most probably lies in > improving its algorithms and training its bots with good Hindi-language > content). When other editors look at such an article, most of them think > "Well, this article already has all the necessary content. There is no need > for me to edit this." I think a thousand short, unreferenced and > well-formatted articles are better than a million long, translated articles > translated from English Wikipedia. > > > Now it is duty of the community to address these concerns. As another > editor said "I feel presenting a project as a high-quality project is > important for attracting more contributors to it". > > > The latest statistics also shows that readership for Hindi > wikipedia<http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/indian-language-wikipedia-statistics-2011-september/>is > shooting up. It is showing exponential growth for the past few month. So > there is no lack of visibility or awareness for Hindi wikipedia. We should > be able to convert at least a small percentage of our readers to editor. > > According to me, the key solution to address all the current issues is > building the community. > > Shiju > > > > On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Gunjan Verma <vermagun...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> Thanks Shiju for compiling all this information. I have read through all >> the replies from diffrent editors. Some editors have mentioned that there >> is no "edit-war" and multiple edit for a single article or collabaration >> for a single article. Unfortunately this has not been going on recently >> however in the past there were several articles where more than 3 people >> would contribute constantly to bring it to a featured article level. Of >> course there were edit-wars and that too in good sense. Some examples are >> >> 1. >> >> http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%80 >> 2. http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%85%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%B0 >> 3. >> >> http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%85%E0%A4%AB%E0%A4%BC%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BE >> >> Hope we can see the same days again. >> >> Regards, >> Gunjan >> >> On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 12:24 PM, Shiju Alex <sh...@wikimedia.org> wrote: >> >> > Dear Indic Language Wikimedia Community members, >> > >> > As part of the Indic Languages initiative of India >> > Programs< >> > >> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Indic_Languages >> > >, >> > I have been having detailed discussions with a wide range of Indic >> language >> > wikipedians for the past few weeks. Yesterday I shared the summary of >> > discussions with few Assamese Wikipedians which helped us to understand >> the >> > current situation of Assamese wikipedia. Thank you for the discussions >> > and ideas that emerged on the mailing list and the talk page. >> > >> > Today I'm particularly excited to share a summary of the discussions >> I've >> > been been having with *Hindi wikipedians*. It is available here: >> > >> > >> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Indic_Languages/Hindi/Discussions/2011 >> > >> > I will be honest and confess that I was not sure about the level of >> > engagement I would have with Hindi wikipedians because the community is >> > relatively quiet in public forums. I'm really pleased to report that I >> was >> > very pleasantly surprised by the broad-based, insightful, and >> constructive >> > communications. Hindi community might be silent but they are active and >> > full of powerful ideas. We have seen wonderful Hindi wikipedians like >> > Anirudh in WCI. Even though the current community strength of Hindi >> > wikipedia might not be good cosidering the huge speaker base of Hindi, >> I am >> > sure the situation will change soon. >> > >> > >> > Even if you are not involved in Hindi projects, I invite you to read >> this >> > report because the points raised are applicable to all Indic languages. >> > Personally, as someone who has been passionate about Indic languages >> for >> > many years now, I found the discussions very educative and informative >> and >> > thought-provoking. I have learnt a lot from these discussions and I >> hope >> > you find them as useful as I have. I want to thank Hindi community for >> > their time and their fantastic inputs. >> > >> > Remember most of the issues the Hindi editors raised are applicable not >> > only to Hindi but for all the Indic languages. So it is important that >> > other Indic language communities take lessons from it while building the >> > community. >> > >> > As mentioned before, I've edited the discussions to protect >> confidentiality >> > as well as to remove any specific personal comments. >> > >> > Inviting your active participation in these discussions (either on talk >> > page or in the mailing lists). >> > >> > Warm Regards, >> > >> > Shiju Alex >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Wikihi-l mailing list >> > wikih...@lists.wikimedia.org >> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikihi-l >> > >> >> >> >> -- >> Gunjan >> >> >> No trees were harmed in the generation of this email. >> However, several trillion electrons were brutally inconvenienced >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikihi-l mailing list >> wikih...@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikihi-l >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimediaindia-l mailing list > Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l > >
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