Malayalam Wikipedia
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Screenshot of the Malayalam Wikipedia home page | |
Type of site | Internet encyclopedia project |
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Available in | Malayalam |
Owner | Wikimedia Foundation |
URL | http://ml.wikipedia.org/ |
Commercial | No |
Registration | Optional |
The Malayalam Wikipedia is the Malayalam-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia, and was launched on December 21, 2002. Among Wikipedias with at least 10,000 articles, the Malayalam Wikipedia has the 2nd largest (as of April 2010[update]) page depth following the English Wikipedia[1]. The project is also the leading Wikipedia among other South East asian language Wikipedias in page depth, average edits per page, number of active users, number of uploaded images.[2] It has grown to be a wiki comprising of more than 12,000 articles as of April 2010[update].[3]
History
Beginning
Malayalam language Wikipedia was created under the initiative of a research student, Vinod Menon M.P. on December 21, 2002. For the two years following the creation, he has been the key person striving to keep the wiki active. Almost all of the users of the wikipedia were non-resident Malayalees. The growth of the Wikipedia during these times was heavily constrained by the absence of Unicode standard for Malayalam. There was little growth in the initial two years.
Initial Growth Phase
By the middle of 2004, unicode and input tools had become popular. Blogging in Malayalam became widespread. Wikipedians started to use these tools and the Wikipedia reached 100 articles by December 2004. More users joined by the middle of 2005 and the wiki had its first sysop by September 2005. He became the first bureaucrat of the wiki after a month and the wiki became self-sufficient in terms of administration.
The year 2006 saw a number of users joining the wiki, following the widespread usage of Malayalam computing tools. 500th article was born on April 10, 2006; the following September the article count reached 1000. On January 15, 2007, this became 2000 and on June 30 it became 3000.
Media coverage and increased growth
The first major Media coverage about the Malayalam Wikipedia was on September 2, 2007, when Malayalam daily newspaper Mathrubhumi covered Malayalam Wikipedia project extensively in its Sunday Supplement.[4]. This generated significant interest in the Wikipedia project and large number of users joined the project and started to contribute.[5] The subsequent growth was exponential.
While the article count increased, extreme care was taken to maintain the quality of articles. The page depth of the wiki remains high at 301(as of March 2010[update])[6]. When the Wikipedia crossed 10,000 articles on June 1, a number of print and online newspapers covered the story.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] The mobile version of the Malayalam Wikipedia is launched on February 2010.
Fonts & Input methods
Although many Malayalam Unicode fonts are available for old and new Malayalam lipi, most users opt for fonts like AnjaliOldLipi, rachana, and Meera which follows the traditional Malayalam writing style. Early editors adopted specialized Malayalam Unicode input tools like Varamozhi keyboard, a phonetic transliteration device. Inscript keyboard is preferred by some users, although the project now has an in-built input tool integrated with it.
References
- ^ List of Wikipedias
- ^ http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaML.htm
- ^ Quick Statistics
- ^ Sunday Supplement, Mathrubhumi, September 2, 2007
- ^ ml:Special:Listusers
- ^ List of Wikipedias
- ^ "A milestone for Malayalam Wiki". The Hindu. 11 June 2009. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
- ^ Mathrubhumi print edition, June 1, 2009
- ^ Joseph Antony (1 June 2009). "'മലയാളം വിക്കി'ക്ക് പതിനായിരത്തിന്റെ നിറവ്" (in Malayalam). Mathrubhumi Online Edition. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
- ^ "ഇവിടെ ക്ലിക്ക് ചെയ്യുക” Kerala Kaumudi print edition 4th June, 2009
- ^ Asianet News, June 1, 2009
- ^ "മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയയില് 10000 ലേഖനങ്ങള്!" (in Malayalam). Webdunia. 1 June 2009. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
- ^ "മലയാളം വിക്കിയില് 10000 ലേഖനങ്ങള്" (in Malayalam). TechVidya. 1 June 2009. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
- ^ Anoop P (3 June 2009). "മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയയില് 10000 ലേഖനങ്ങള്" (in Malayalam). e-Pathram. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
- ^ Siraj Newspaper, Print Edition, 3rd June, 2009, Page 5
- ^ "മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയ" (in Malayalam). KottayamVartha. 2 June 2009. Retrieved 13 October 2009. , June 02, 2009
- ^ "Malayalam Wikipedia completes 10,000 article milestone". kochivibe.com. 2 June 2009. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/80/Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg/40px-Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg.png)