Now in Sinhala Wikipedia the activity level is at a all time high (at least that's how I feel it). There are a few casual contributors but we have a few exceptionally active users now.
I guess it's about time we form that reviewer panel there. I prefer if Sinhala Community learn to use admins rather than giving them personalities. I started a discussion regarding this in කෝපි කඩේ but there was not much of a response on that.
I of cause didn't go for a full scale reviewer panel to start with. My first concern was on deleting articles. We are having some doubts about deleting most of the articles. Today's mechanism of deleting things is one person tags an article to be deleted and an admin go through the article and check whether it should be deleted or not. If the admin feels it should be deleted then the article is deleted. This is very inefficient since we only have two admins in our wiki now. Besides I'm not a big fan of giving decision making power to admins. I prefer if we can keep admins as tools not as personalities.
Well, anyway it's up to the community to decide on that. We will have a real thing soon ;-)
As for the statistics, the article count on 2010 August 27 is 3,846.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Monday, August 02, 2010
Trolls
For some reason there is an increase in the activity level in Sinhala Wikipedia these days. You would say it's good. But I have mixed feelings about it. Let's see what they are.
First of all on the good side now we are having some kind of a community there. People ask questions, others answer them and there are a lot of community activities going on. Since creation of the Sinhala Wikipedia, now only we are seeing the "කෝපි කඩේ" being utilized to the limits.
However on the bad side, most of these new ones seem to be "Trolls". How are we to deal with this situation?
In my opinion we are fighting a war against extinction, defending a already (half) dead language. How successful we will be in the fight against the minority of people who speak and understand the same language we are trying to defend?
I just hope people who do the hard work in our Wiki will have strength to ignore these trolls to continue their work.
Wish us luck!
:-)
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Administrator
Last month, බිඟුවා requested sysop rights on our Wikipedia project. Here is the link if you like to see the discussion.
I couldn’t believe the number of users voted this time. You may remember how little people participated in the vote for Kylu. This time there was a load of voters in the discussion.
Usually I would have thought it is still too early for him to ask for admin, but after seeing the way he work I also casted my vote for him. By the way I hope you didn’t get the feeling that all the votes were for him. There were a lot of votes against him. So in the end when the vote is posted to META, they did not believe he has support from majority and the request was turned down.
However all was not bad from the Sinhala Wikipedia side. This was the biggest discussion ever on Sinhala Wikipedia as far as I can remember. That means we have a community. And the most important is බිඟුවා still is working with us.
Unfortunately most of the people came to vote here were just there to oppose him. After the vote is over I’m yet to see a single edit from some of them. I hope they’ll someday use the force they unleash on බිඟුවා to help our wiki grow.
I couldn’t believe the number of users voted this time. You may remember how little people participated in the vote for Kylu. This time there was a load of voters in the discussion.
Usually I would have thought it is still too early for him to ask for admin, but after seeing the way he work I also casted my vote for him. By the way I hope you didn’t get the feeling that all the votes were for him. There were a lot of votes against him. So in the end when the vote is posted to META, they did not believe he has support from majority and the request was turned down.
However all was not bad from the Sinhala Wikipedia side. This was the biggest discussion ever on Sinhala Wikipedia as far as I can remember. That means we have a community. And the most important is බිඟුවා still is working with us.
Unfortunately most of the people came to vote here were just there to oppose him. After the vote is over I’m yet to see a single edit from some of them. I hope they’ll someday use the force they unleash on බිඟුවා to help our wiki grow.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Main Page - Part II
It's good to see that now we have a kind of a decent main page. However there are a few issue brought up.
It is brought to my notice that we need to have a "Get Sinhala" link in the main page. The main point raised here is that most of the users out there using XP and by default that operating system does not support Sinhala Unicode.
Sounds true to me...
But the previous link really does not look nice (in my opinion). [හරියට නිකං සීනි බෝල කඩේක බෝඩ් එකක් වාගෙ.]
I believe our main page should be either in the standards of the the English main page or ours should be better. If we can't do better we can at least stay at the standards of the English wiki.
We already have a text link in small text on each and every page including the main page that says read this if you can't read the text in the page. I didn't check the content on that page in many years though... :-)
Started a thread on කෝපි කඩේ also. Let's see what people have to suggest on this.
Statistic Update: Number of articles 3,773 (2010-06-02)
It is brought to my notice that we need to have a "Get Sinhala" link in the main page. The main point raised here is that most of the users out there using XP and by default that operating system does not support Sinhala Unicode.
Sounds true to me...
But the previous link really does not look nice (in my opinion). [හරියට නිකං සීනි බෝල කඩේක බෝඩ් එකක් වාගෙ.]
I believe our main page should be either in the standards of the the English main page or ours should be better. If we can't do better we can at least stay at the standards of the English wiki.
We already have a text link in small text on each and every page including the main page that says read this if you can't read the text in the page. I didn't check the content on that page in many years though... :-)
Started a thread on කෝපි කඩේ also. Let's see what people have to suggest on this.
Statistic Update: Number of articles 3,773 (2010-06-02)
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Main Page
Now we have a decent number of contributors and articles it's time to think about the real look and feel of the wiki :-)
Notice the smile at the end of previous sentence.
I think the current main page of the Sinhala Wikipedia is not something we can call exactly a perfect one. I feel it's not balanced properly.
(Just like the web pages I used to make when I was learning HTML)
Shhhhhhh... I didn't say the previous sentence ;-)
So all the interface gurus out there, how about helping us in cleaning things up?
A few things I'd like to see in our main page.
It's an intro page. It's nice if the page is simple rather than having a page choked with information.
Today I find it slow on my home connection. When it is slow I feel like not going there. That limits the time I stay with the wiki.... and That's bad :-)
Let's hope my dream will come true in near future ;-)
Statistic Update:
The current article count as on 25th May, 2010 is 3323.
Notice the smile at the end of previous sentence.
I think the current main page of the Sinhala Wikipedia is not something we can call exactly a perfect one. I feel it's not balanced properly.
(Just like the web pages I used to make when I was learning HTML)
Shhhhhhh... I didn't say the previous sentence ;-)
So all the interface gurus out there, how about helping us in cleaning things up?
A few things I'd like to see in our main page.
- A simple page.
- It should load fast.
- It should be FULL
A simple page.
It's an intro page. It's nice if the page is simple rather than having a page choked with information.
It should load fast
Today I find it slow on my home connection. When it is slow I feel like not going there. That limits the time I stay with the wiki.... and That's bad :-)
It should be FULLToday there are a lot of blank spaces in the main page (as I see it). I'm sure we can improve those.
Let's hope my dream will come true in near future ;-)
Statistic Update:
The current article count as on 25th May, 2010 is 3323.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
End of a War!
The year 2010 is mostly a war at Sinhala Wikipedia. A company has started putting article to the wiki (Paid Editing). It wasn't bad until they started showing disrespect towards the community.
Personally I'm not against anyone getting paid to improve the starving Sinhala wiki. As you all know we have a very few contributors at the moment. But I don't think I like it when they want to own the wiki articles and play funny games with Wikipedia policies.
However it is good that the company finally agreed to strongest of the demands by the community.
Few things I would like to note here.
Let's see how things will turn out.
As on 2010-May-22, the current article count is 3309. That's not a bad value compared to what we used to have.
Personally I'm not against anyone getting paid to improve the starving Sinhala wiki. As you all know we have a very few contributors at the moment. But I don't think I like it when they want to own the wiki articles and play funny games with Wikipedia policies.
However it is good that the company finally agreed to strongest of the demands by the community.
Few things I would like to note here.
- First is, if you are interested in doing something good, you have to learn the basics about it.
- If you are getting paid to do something and there are people who do the same thing for free, they deserve some respect.
- When you are involved in a community driven work, try to be part of the community rather than fight against it.
Let's see how things will turn out.
As on 2010-May-22, the current article count is 3309. That's not a bad value compared to what we used to have.
Friday, July 31, 2009
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!
:-)
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!
:-)
Monday, August 25, 2008
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.
[
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.
- Who uses Sinhala wikipedia?
- Do we really need an encyclopedia in Sinhala?
- Do we have something that can be called a Sinhala community?
- Do people like to work in Sinhala?
Thursday, August 14, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, November 19, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
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).
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).
Sunday, April 22, 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).
Friday, December 22, 2006
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 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!
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, November 27, 2006
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. ;-)
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. ;-)
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
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!
It’s mostly Ruwan’s work. Nice work Ruwan keep it up!
Sunday, July 16, 2006
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.
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.
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