How Nepali Wikipedia Started Before Hindi Wikipedia is not an unfamiliar word to those with access to the Internet. If you search for any information you need on Google, Wikipedia’s page appears at the top.
In all cases, the page of Wikipedia is not visible. However, if you search for any words such as history, geography, politics, religion, science, technology, etc., Wikipedia is usually seen at the top.
We don’t need to see any kind of advertisement when looking at any information on Wikipedia. Because the company does not take the help of advertisements to provide appropriate information to the user.
So how is Wikipedia operating? And who and how are they working on Wikipedia? Today we are discussing this in detail.
What is Wikipedia?
In general, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is a book that contains all kinds of information.
An encyclopedia is no different than a repository or source of various information. Similarly, the digital version of the book is ‘Wikipedia’.
“Wikipedia is called an encyclopedia because you can find information on almost all the subjects you are looking for,” says Ganesh Paudel, who has been contributing to Wikipedia from Nepal since 2004, “It is an online encyclopedia based on a computer or let’s say a digital version.”
How does Wikipedia work?
Wikipedia was started in 2001 by British Americans Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Encyclopaedia, Britannica and Encarta encyclopedias were in vogue at that time.
These encyclopedias were printed as books in 20, 25, and 30 volumes. The publisher had to invest more in these books and the reader had to buy them. Encarta encyclopedia was released on CD to simplify it.
However, its limitation was that a device was needed to use the CD. At that time not everyone had access to the device. Due to this, the encyclopedia was not accessible to many people.
After that, online came into vogue and Wikipedia was started in the English language in 2001 with the cooperation of Larry and Jimmy, considering that an encyclopedia should be provided through the Internet. But shortly after the start, there was a dispute between the two co-founders.
Beginning of Pali Wikipedia
The Nepali version of Wikipedia, which started in English in January 2001, was launched in June 2003. “Hindi Wikipedia had not started at that time. “Nepali Wikipedia has become very fast,” says Paudel, “Apart from Hindi, Wikipedias in other major languages of India were also started by Nepalis.”
Nepali words are written in the Devanagari script. At that time, it was customary to write in pictures. So it was a problem to write online without matching fonts. At that time, an important work started. What happened was that after the Madan Prize Library gave a slot to Devanagari for the Unicode of the Nepali language, the Unicode Consortium (The Unicode Consortium) also gave the input of the keyboard. Thus it became easy to write Nepali language in Unicode. Paudel was also involved in making the Devanagari script Unicode.
How does Wikipedia work?
Although Wikipedia can be read for free, billions of dollars in income and expenses are being spent every year during its operation. Since the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, is a non-profit organization, it does not have to pay taxes to any government agency in any country. However, the Wikimedia Foundation organizes seminars and conferences on various topics by gathering limited contributors from around the world.
Apart from that, technical expenses are also incurred for the operation of Wikipedia. For this, Wikimedia collects limited support from readers. The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, once criticized Wikipedia for asking for help. He also announced giving one billion dollars by changing the name (D*ckipedia) to an English obscene word.
Who is the author and editor of Wikipedia?
Also, anyone can edit the mistakes on the page with or without an account on Wikipedia. While editing, Wikipedia keeps the IP addresses of such users. Biplav Anand, who has been an admin in Wikipedia since 2013, says, “A help page has been kept to provide information on how to start a new page on Wikipedia. In it, we have taught how to create a new page.”
From the same help page, you can ask any question to any admin. Also, to prepare a new page in Wikipedia (to give information about a new place, to write a biography of a person) it is not necessary to fulfill these criteria. You can also create a new page by creating an account on the Wikipedia page. However, after preparing the page, the information mentioned there should be accurate. Anand says, “If a new page is prepared, we will receive a notification to the admin. We verify that page and decide whether to accept or reject it.”
How to create a new page on Wikipedia?
According to Anand, it is appropriate to start creating a new page after understanding all the policies and formats of Wikipedia. Also, Wikipedia runs based on ‘Media Wiki Software’.
“Just as we use Microsoft’s Windows or Linux OS on a desktop or PC, Wikipedia uses MediaWiki software,” says Anand, “It uses CSS. There is nothing difficult to edit. However, this software has templates for creating new pages. A new page can be created using the same template.”
He suggested that since it is a task to gradually learn how to create a new page on Wikipedia, one should learn to edit first and then contribute to the new page later. “If you start editing, you will know about the framework of the new page. And if the page is created by understanding all the formats and following the policy, the page will be accepted,” he adds.
Wikimedians of Nepal!
Wikipedia also has local volunteers to manage content in Nepal. Eight admins are actively working in the group named Wikimedians of Nepal. They are especially active in checking the correctness of edited articles immediately, locking pages for some time to reduce editing wars, and promoting their mother tongue and local culture, behavior, and traditions.
To become a local manager or let’s say an admin of Wikipedia, you must fulfill certain criteria. According to Anand, a log-like dashboard is provided to the admin. The main job of the admin is to check that the edited articles are correct or not.
What does Wikipedia give to society? What do you get by editing or adding a new page?
It is not possible to directly earn money by posting articles on Wikipedia. If an article is posted by taking money from someone, then that article is one-sided and in that case, the admin will delete the page itself. Similarly, if it is known that an article has been written with money, the admin will report the editor and the Wikipedia Foundation will block the account so that it can never be edited.
So what can be found by writing on Wikipedia? Answering this question, Pankaj Dev, who has been an editor on Wikipedia since 2014, says, “Writing on Wikipedia means educating people. That is its main advantage. Wikipedia readers are all over the world. It helps you get your writing out into the world. It is a matter of pride to be able to contribute to such a site.”
Why is Wikipedia’s page at the top for most information?
There are many reasons why Wikipedia’s page is ranked at the top for most information. One is that Wikipedia is one of the oldest platforms on the Internet. In the early days, it started to become people’s choice after getting updated information on a single platform.
The number of people who contributed as volunteers also increased as the information that they had kept became visible to Internet users all over the world. Platforms operating from private resources could not provide information on various issues. Therefore, in the beginning, Wikipedia came to be at the top position. Based on the popularity of the website, the algorithm of various search engine tools shows its page at the top of the search results.
Wikipedia has been prioritizing these things since its inception. Even now, if there is an incomplete article without a source, it will not be published on Wikipedia. Therefore, Wikipedia has become one of the most visited websites because it contains detailed information on every subject from the basic level.