Blog :: 'PariveshaNa'

On how Google irreparably wounded Kannada Wikipedia

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Google India paid local companies/agencies to test and use their Indian language translation tool. The platform they chose was Wikipedia.

What happened next was disastrous. Especially on Kannada Wikipedia.

Rumors spread that "You get paid for writing on Wikipedia". The regular contributors felt discouraged as they continued to contribute as volunteers while others, the translators commissioned by agencies were getting paid pretty well.

Google was actually paying the agencies, translators who used their translation tool to translate articles from English Wikipedia to the Indian language projects.

ShishunaLa Sharif and Govinda Bhat

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People

Kannada

Literature

Shishunala Sharif, Govinda Bhat

A rather rare photo that has ShishunaLa Shariff and Govinda Bhatt. I captured this from a photo at poet H S Venkateshamurthy's place.

Note: The quality of photo ain't that good.

Going by the description on the photo, ShishunaLa Shariff is the second one from right - last row.

Wikimania 2011

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Photos

Wikimania

Being someone who's behind the camera for most part, a photo of me with the camera in my hand is a rare and memorable shot. Here's one:

Hari Prasad Nadig

Photo: Wikimedia Isreal

Just back from Wikimania 2011

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Wikimania 2011 at Haifa, Isreal

Back home from Haifa. Wikimania 2011 was excellent.

It was great to meet Wikipedians from all over the world. There's plenty to take forward from the event.

A special thanks to Wikimedia Israel for the marvellous event. I heard from others that this one has been the best Wikimania to the date. I haven't been to any of the previous events, but this one was quite an event in terms of planning and organization. It was the best.