Hi 2009!

It’s been a very long time since I updated this blog. So I thought I should be posting some update here.

The current article count as at 2009-07-31 is 1858. That’s really impressive compared to old days where we were trying to get the thing started. However it’s still too slow in growing. But we can live with that. Now we are not advertising a blank site so there should be new contributors coming in soon enough.

As for the main page I don’t think I like how it looks right now. Anyway I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who thinks that way. But it’s a bit annoying to see that nobody is brave enough to make those corrections. If nobody’s going to make nice changes to main page, I’m planning taking the layout back to look and feel of the English wikipedia.

Well, that’s all I have for now. I’ll try write more often than this!

:-)

Opps! It’s happening again!

Today we got a new post in one of our talk pages.

[
I am sorry, this translation from English wiki Current Events is killing me..I can not do it alone
]

How do you feel about it?

I know, I’ve felt the same way when I started on the project. You started working and you are working everyday hoping that some one will join you and someone will use your work. But hey; nobody even care.

Now before you start on blaming every politician, you’ve to listen to this.

First let me ask you few question.

1. Who uses Sinhala wikipedia?
2. Do we really need an encyclopedia in Sinhala?
3. Do we have something that can be called a Sinhala community?
4. Do people like to work in Sinhala?

I guess that’s enough for one round. Try to answer them and I’ll get back to you with more info on this.

Thanks UoC!

Well... Yes I know. It's really a long time since my last post in this blog. But you know half the reason. As I expected, time blew that storm away and now we are back again in calm waters.

However I have many things to report now. One great thing is University of Colombo is doing a great job by helping in. You won’t believe the article count as of 2008-08-14 goes up to 795. Most of this goes to University of Colombo.

I know Dr. Ruwan has been behind this but that’s all I know about that side. I wish I knew the rest of the people who were there so that I can personally thank them.

Even though I do not know you all personally, thank you all for the great work!

Stay tuned if you want to know more.

I'm still alive!!!

ok, now there is something happening. :-)

It's really nice to see people adding articles to the Sinhala wiki after a long time. 327 articles (as per the count on 19-Nov-2007); mmm... not bad at all. There is a chance for us to make it to the 500 article target I set for 2007 ;-)

Well, any way now there are enough user and admins at Sinhala wiki. So I'm planning to leave the project so that old man in me won't bother the new guys in there way to the new era. :-)

I'll still be around for some time before saying goodbye for ever.

We have a new Main Page!

After a long time we changed the main page contents. It is nothing much but at least it’s not just a plain page with lot of links (which are also not working). Basically it is the skeleton from the English WP. (OK, OK some times it does not hurt to steal ;-))

Hmmm… lot of content to be filled up!

We don’t still have a page that we can call complete. Therefore we’ve used the one that is closest.

BTW something embarrassing also happened there. Kylu asked for sysop. Can you guess how many votes were there? Can’t guess ah? OK, then I’ll help you. There were no votes against her. That is ok, because we owe her a lot. But for her there were only 4 votes. That is the count of active users in Sinhala Wikipedia today. :-)

So talking about statistics, we have 198 articles (16th August 2007).

I'm back again

Ok, it’s a long time since I did something at the wikipedia. There were some tips from user Thogo about handling spambots. Implemented it! Let’s see if we are going to be free from them.

Most of the previously active users seem to be away from the Sinhala wiki now. :-( Too bad, we were staring to do something there. But let’s see if we can get some brave new souls to fill the void left by those heroes. :-)

Article count is 173 (as on 2007-04-22).

Christmas wikibreak

Ok, it is time to take a break and enjoy life... :-D

We have 147 articles (as on 2006-12-22). Very slow! I know....

Well..... Let’s hope to reach 500 articles in 2007.
Not a hard target isn’t it?

Wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We are getting spam...

WOW!!!
Now we are getting some spam too. :-D
Nice to see at least somebody is interested in our encyclopedia.

No changes of the article count. We are still waiting for contributors. However it seems we are about to enter in to another season of high activity. We’ll see how it turns out.

I'm back...

Ruwan is back in business. So I can't just sit and wait; have to do something. He got me cornered. :-D

So the article count says 143 (as on 2006 November 27). Not bad for an encyclopedia with very limited resources. However we seriously need some contributors. Any volunteers???

Latest addition to note is the MediaWiki:Edittools page. It is still under construction, but better than having nothing. Why don’t you guys log in there and see how easy it is now to edit something. ;-)

100 Articles Limit

Last week Ruwan asked in the LK_LUG mailing lists for support. We seem to get more users this week. I’ve no idea whether they are replying to the request, but anyway we’ve reached 125 pages.

It’s mostly Ruwan’s work. Nice work Ruwan keep it up!

Sinhala and IT

Sinhala Wikipedia Statistics

We have 86 pages as per the count in the morning Sri Lanka time.
The most active contributor these days is Ruwan [http://si.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ruwan].
Sadly we have very few contributors so far.

Today’s Situation: Do we need Sinhala?

The main difficulty with “Sinhala and IT” is not the technology; but the people themselves. Most of the people I asked for support gave comments like these:

• There is no need to have an Encyclopedia in Sinhala
• It is much easier to deal with knowledge in English than in Sinhala

...and a wonderful:

• I won’t do it because you are asking it

Well, personally I agree with both the first two points. There is actually no need to have IT in Sinhala. To tell you the truth my interest in this area is because it is a good academic challenge to work with IT in Sinhala.

Open for comments...

Sinhala Encyclopedia

Story so far...

2006-April-21 1:07 PM
Got an invitation from Sasakthi [http://si.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sasakthi] to join the Sinhala Wikipedia project

2006-April-23, 09:33 AM
Created the account in Sinhala Wikipedia

11:33, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Our users seem to need the Portal namespace too. I asked the user Kylu of the English Wikipedia who first welcomed me to the world of Wikipedia to help me out. She was no admin then but took a leading role in helping us get the namespace setup.

2006-July-11 17:15:21 UTC
We now have the Portal namespace in Sinhala Wikipedia.