With the aim of building more Goa-related content in cyberspace, particularly on the
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that is created and edited by
volunteers worldwide, the Goa Wikipedia Group (GWG), a recently-formed WhatsApp
network,has brought together over 200 people. One of the first events was an
edit-a-thon, which is an organised event where volunteer editors of online
communities such as Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, and LocalWiki edit and improve a
specific topic or type of content. The event also included some basic editing
training for new editors. It was held at the Central Library, Panjim, last
weekend.
One of the GWG's goals is to promote
freely-available Goa-related information on the Konkani Wikipedia
gom.wikipedia. org.
Though many
volunteers have put in long efforts to promote the Konkani Wikipedia for around
a decade now, it still needs a lot of help to grow, and currently has some
3,500 articles of varying lengths on it.
The Wikipedia is a
free online encyclopedia, created and edited by volunteers around the world and
hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Because its knowledge is sharable and can
be re-used by anyone, it is a particularly attractive form of volunteering to
create and share information.
GWG is currently
working on its 'Get a Goan Writer On The Wikipedia Campaign'. The goal is to
create a page for as many prominent local authors, to encourage writers to
become Wikipedians or Wiki translators, or to photograph a Goan writer and
share the work with the globe via the Wikimedia Commons.
"Your language
deserves this, your region badly needs this...," said Frederick Noronha,
who founded the informal GWG recently.
The GWG, which can be joined by
WhatsApping 9822122436, also plans to encourage people wishing to set up pages
on various Goan villages, prominent and small, as a means to build more
relevant, Goan content in the cyber world.
Pune-based Denzil 'The Discoverer'
Simoes pointed to the need for translating the Wikipedia interface, MediaWiki,
into Konkani, to make it easier for Konkani speakers to access the
site."We have to keep translating the Wikipedia interface because the
messages keep getting updated, and new messages keep getting added,"
commented Denzil, better known by his Wikipedia username The Discoverer.
"In the past, Darshan Kandolkar, Isidore Dantas, Vaisali Parab, and others
have worked on interface translation," he added.
Another crucial task is for sharing
photos of various aspects of Goa – localities, prominent personalities, food,
culture, festivals, etc – which can be easily downloaded and shared by anyone,
from school children to researchers, under the freely shareable license of the
Wikipedia.
At the weekend's meetup, lexicographer
Isidore Dantas, who co-created a Konkani dictionary, came specially from Pune.
Others that took part included historians, Konkani language specialists,
techies, etc.
The initiative’s plan is to also do
more online work through the internet itself, instead of depending only on
actual meet-ups, and undertaking training while volunteers are actually on the
job instead of having it classroom-based.
"All volunteers are welcome, and we are willing to
help. Goa needs more content in cyberspace in all languages – Konkani, English,
Marathi, Hindi, even Portuguese, French or Kannada," the GWG said in a
press note. The community space on the Konkani Wikipedia (called the 'tinto')
is at http://bit.ly/konkani-tinto and discussions take place there.