Malayalam Wikipedia
Encyclopedia
The Malayalam Wikipedia (Malayalam: മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയ) is the Malayalam language
edition of Wikipedia
, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia
, and was launched on December 21, 2002. The project is the leading Wikipedia among other South East Asian language Wikipedias in various quality matrices. It has grown to be a wiki containing more than 19,000 articles ..
related issues, and so on.
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.
covered Malayalam Wikipedia project extensively in its Sunday Supplement.. This generated significant interest in the Wikipedia project and large number of users joined the project and started to contribute. 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 . When the Wikipedia crossed 10,000 articles on June 1, a number of print and online newspapers covered the story.
The mobile version of the Malayalam Wikipedia was launched on February 2010.
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 based on the Varamozhi keyboard, a phonetic transliteration device. Inscript keyboard is preferred by some users, although the project now has an in-built input tool (Narayam) integrated to it.
Malayalam language
Malayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...
edition of Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
, and was launched on December 21, 2002. The project is the leading Wikipedia among other South East Asian language Wikipedias in various quality matrices. It has grown to be a wiki containing more than 19,000 articles ..
Beginning
Malayalam language Wikipedia is available in the wikipedia.org domain from 2002 December 21. User Vinod Menon M.P. had took initiatives for it. For the two years following its creation, he has been the key person striving to keep the wiki active. Almost all the early users of Malayalam Wikipedia were non-resident Malayalees. The growth of the Wikipedia during these times was heavily constrained due to OS and browser related issues, rendering issues, UnicodeUnicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
related issues, and so on.
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 MathrubhumiMathrubhumi
Mathrubhumi is a Malayalam language newspaper that is published from Kerala, India. Mathrubhumi was founded by K. P. Kesava Menon, an active volunteer in the Indian freedom struggle against the British.-History:...
covered Malayalam Wikipedia project extensively in its Sunday Supplement.. This generated significant interest in the Wikipedia project and large number of users joined the project and started to contribute. 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 . When the Wikipedia crossed 10,000 articles on June 1, a number of print and online newspapers covered the story.
The mobile version of the Malayalam Wikipedia was launched on February 2010.
Fonts and input methods
Although many Malayalam UnicodeUnicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
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 based on the Varamozhi keyboard, a phonetic transliteration device. Inscript keyboard is preferred by some users, although the project now has an in-built input tool (Narayam) integrated to it.