Wikimania 2022 Organized by Odia Wikimedians User Group at Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar: Odia Wikimedians organized a two-day regional Wikimania event on 13-14 August, 2022. This event is an extension of one of the largest community events in the Wikimedia movement.

After two extensive days of discussions and reviews, the Wikimania regional event organized by the Odia Wikimedians User Group concluded today.

The event was inaugurated by Manoj Kumar Mishra, Secretary, Electronics and Information Technology (E&IT) Department, Government of Odisha on Sunday. He offered his department’s support to help the community expand the work to promote language and for digitalisation of literature.

Apart from the Wikimedians from Odia and Santali communities, Manavpreet Kaur from Wikimedia Foundation had also joined the event. She spoke about affiliate growth and available support. She also introduced the community to the ongoing discussion about Hubs and the Movement Charter Drafting Committee’s work.

Founded in 2002, Odia Wikipedia is one of the oldest South Asian language Wikipedias and has recently turned 20. Odia Wikipedia is now the largest collection of free- knowledge available in the language on the internet. Odia community members come from all walks of life, contributing to an increase in the number of articles from approximately 630 to almost 16,000 articles in the past ten years. The community managed to get the data from the Odisha States Covid Dashboard under a free license – and were able to upload government awareness resources like videos on Covid on Wikimedia commons for free and easy dissemination. This collaboration was not something new- the Odia Wikimedia community has been collaborating with the Odisha government since 2017- its direct impact worth noting as the Government of Odisha became the first state entity in India to release most of its social media posts under a free Creative Commons license. There are many notable achievements of the community to preserve their language and culture while helping Odia speakers access information and knowledge in their native tongue easily on their mobile devices.

During this event, the community discussed the policies and guidelines of Odia Wikipedia, and also designed the basic guidelines and criteria for enhancing the overall quality of content. The community unanimously agreed to all the proposed suggestions.

The guest attendees appreciated the support that the Odia community extended to their fellow wikimedians from the Santali language. Manavpreet mentioned how such events offer space for communities to meet and interact, share their experiences and learnings in a safe space and productive space.

Fellow Santhali Wikimedians also joined Wikimania and took active part in discussions and learned to improve & growth of the Santhali Community.