Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Welcome to #Wikipedia II

When volunteers are the most precious things you have, you want more of them. Their time is the resource that they volunteer. It may sound odd, but improving the value of the time spend by volunteers is a sound investment.

When a new Wikipedia starts, it has little of everything. It has a start of its localisation, a few hundred small articles and a handful of enthusiasts. It needs more of all that as it grows. As it grows additional things become relevant like policies specific to its community, people who have the knack of moving things along...

Particularly when a Wikipedia is still small, the people learning about the Wikipedia in their language are new. They may have heard about Wikipedias and other languages but they have to learn about this one.  A FAQ is one resource that can help people in the right direction. The FAQ as published by the Indian chapter provides a good example. It is not to big and appropriate for their environment. It is also used as a translation exercise intended to bring Indian Wikipedians together.


Commons became more hospitable to the readers of Indian Wikipedias with their localisation available on Commons for readers. These may seem like small things but they show how much we welcome our global audience.
Thanks,
       GerardM

PS for an even better result, use some inviting illustrations !!

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