Wikipedia:WikiProject India/Outreach/Newsletter/June 2010

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WP:IND Newsletter is back! It's been nearly a year since the last edition, but we hope to bring out issues on a more regular basis now. The India Wikiproject was set up to increasing coverage of India-related topics on Wikipedia, and over the past few months the focus has been on improving article quality. A number of the project's featured articles underwent featured article reviews over the past year. Of these, Darjeeling and Flag of India survived the review process, while the rest were demoted. During the same period, Gangtok, Harbhajan Singh, Darjeeling and Mysore were featured on the main page respectively on August 20, September 17, November 6 and December 29, 2009. Meanwhile, articles on topics as diverse as Political history of Mysore and Coorg (1565–1760), Marwari horse and Iravan were promoted as featured articles, and respectively appeared on the main page on March 25, May 17 and May 28, 2010. Consequently, the number of FA-class articles under the project's scope dropped from 67 in August 2009 to 63 in June 2010. The number of good articles, however, saw a more than 40% increase, from 91 to 130 during the same period, while the number of featured lists saw a 33% increase from 12 to 16.

Due to the recent policy changes regarding unreferenced Biographies of Living People (BLPs), an effort was started in January 2010 to source all unreferenced BLPs coming under Wikiproject India. 1200 such articles were identified initially and more were added to the list later. Due to the sourcing effort, the number of Indian unreferenced BLPs is down to 565 currently. During February-April 2010, There was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ANoticeboard_for_India-related_topics&action=historysubmit&diff=361437108&oldid=361415052 large scale disruption] of Kerala related articles by a Thrissur based IP vandal. Editing from a dynamic IP BSNL connection, the vandal changed dates of birth, death and ages of a number of Malayalam and Tamil film actors. Later he added a few international biographies to his list. He also marked some living people like Arvind Swamy as dead. A month long range block was imposed on his IP range two times and each time he came back to vandalise dates once the block expired. Currently the range has been blocked for three months till September 11, 2010.

• Three members of the project, Abecedare, Tinu Cherian and SpacemanSpiff received their sysop mops in October-December 2009. Congratulations!
• File:Sikh pilgrim at the Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib) in Amritsar, India.jpg contest 2009. Translations of the description in Indian languages are solicited.]]
• Wikipedians in Bangalore have been organising periodic meetups over the past year, in collaboration with the [http://www.cis-india.org Centre for Internet and Society]. The next meetup is scheduled for July 18, 2010. Indian and other Wikipedians from all Wikipedias in various languages are welcome to attend.

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• Please add Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics to your watchlist in order to stay updated with the latest discussions regarding various aspects of the project.

• A discussion is underway here to reach a consensus regarding the use of Indian number names (lakh, crore etc.) in Wikipedia articles. Please participate and add your comments.

• Join the effort to source and save unreferenced Indian BLPs.

• Some unintended vandalism is going on at the Assamese Wikipedia by the sole active editor. This is a request for Assamese-conversant Wikipedians to help resolve the issue.

• A discussion is in progress here in order to determine whether non-Western (including Indian) forms of classical music should be referred to by the nomenclature of art music instead of classical music. Please participate and add your comments.

• Watchlist the Articles for Deletions page for India related discussions. Opinions from more Indian Wikipedians are required in many of the discussions.

• The World Classical Tamil Conference 2010 is at present underway in Coimbatore, and the Tamil Wikipedia is actively involved at the event. A detailed report will follow in the next issue.

• Wikimania 2010 is happening in Poland from July 7-11. Indian Wikipedians attending include Gurubrahma, Shiju Alex, Ravidreams , Santhosh Thottingal, Tinu Cherian, WMF Board member Bishakha Datta and Advisory Board member Achal Prabala. We wish them all the best! More on their experiences in the next issue.

If you've just joined, add your name to the Members section of WikiProject India. You'll get a mention in the next issue of the Newsletter and get it delivered as desired. Also, please include your own promotions and awards in future issues. Don't be shy!

Lastly, this is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue (Issue 2 – (July 2010)). Any and all contributions are welcome. Simply let yourself be known to any of the undersigned, or just start editing!