 Bengali Wikipedia is the largest online encyclopaedia in Bangladesh. Already, there are more than 20,000 articles in this volunteer-crafted free encyclopaedia. To promote Wikipedia and other open-content projects in the country, local Wikipedians have started an independent and non-profit organisation, named "Wikimedia Bangladesh". This organisation will act as the local chapter of Wikimedia foundation, which hosts and maintains Wikipedia and related projects. However, the local chapter will be legally independent of the foundation and will work for the improvement of online content in Bengali language as well as promote open-content projects in Bangladesh through outreach programmes such as seminars, workshops, exhibitions etc.
In order to initiate the activities of Wikimedia Bangladesh, Bangladeshi Wikipedians are meeting online every Thursday night (11 PM, Bangladesh Standard Time). The most recent meeting was held on 10th September in the official IRC channel for Wikimedia Bangladesh #wikimedia-bd. Ragib Hasan (administrator for Bengali Wikipedia), Belayet Hossain (administrator of Bengali Wikipedia and Bengali Wikisource), other editors, and well wishers took part in that meeting. Cary Bass, the Volunteer coordinator of Wikimedia foundation joined the meeting from the foundation's headquarters in San Francisco, USA. The meeting was quite lively and the Wikipedians proposed different ideas to increase the number of volunteers in Bengali Wikimedia projects. Wikipedians decided to promote Wikipedia and other projects in different social websites and blogs. It was also decided that updated news of Wikipedia will be regularly sent to the local print and electronic media. Progressive organisations around the country will be invited to collaborate in generating free and open knowledge in Bengali language. Another important point made at the meeting was to publish a booklet in Bengali to introduce Wikipedia to the general people of the country. This booklet will contain information on how to use and contribute to Bengali Wikipedia. This booklet will be distributed all over the country during various local and national events.
Bengali Wikipedia is evolving steadily through the dedicated efforts of the volunteers, both inside and outside Bangladesh. Bangladeshi Wikipedian community cordially invites everyone to join this effort to create the peoples' encyclopaedia. Meta page for Wikimedia Bangladesh is http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Bangladesh. The webpage link for Bengali Wikipedia is http://bn.wikipedia.org, link for English Wikipedia is http://en.wikipedia.org and link for the Bengali Wikisource is http://bn.wikisource.org.p |