As a means of keeping the language alive, why in your opinion should Wikipedia be given attention?
The way I see it, governments in India are giving students computers but many of them do not realise these are mostly villagers. Many don’t know English. Where then is the content to be generated? What is the point in giving someone a device or a machine if there is no local content?
Everything that is local: our buildings, our customs and food is based on oral tradition. If we don’t create our own knowledge, in the future, no one is going to look at a Britannica or the encyclopedia. If we do not find contributors now, there will be not Konkani content for the next generation.
For me, I am very keen that educational resources should be freely available to everyone. There should be equality in accessing knowledge irrespective of how wealthy one is. There is an urgent need for vernacular articles to be online.
Coming to Goa, it’s a known fact that there is a war behind Devnagri and Romi scripts. Does this in any way feature online too?
Konkan cultures are varied, wide and diverse but only in museums and not online. Wikipedia acknowledged Konkani as a language and was made official last year, after a nine-year long wait.
The point I want to make here is, the myth that script war is seen as a barrier, is not true. It was found that no article was edited in any script after it was published. There is a general lethargy in all scripts so it’s not that one script is ahead of the other.
If script is not an issue, why has Konkani taken a back seat? Why is its presence not felt on Wikipedia?
There are a lot of myths about Wikipedia. One is accuracy of a Wikipedia page. This is because people don’t know how to look at a Wikipedia article. If you look, there is a history as well as discussion. An article on Wikipedia builds a reputation on editors. People need to look at Wikipedia intelligently. If one knows something is wrong, they should have the power to edit it.
Another issue is that we need more women on Wikipedia. There have been efforts to bring more women, but all these efforts have only been focused on English. Konkani also needs to be in the limelight.
Education wise too, the potential is immense. Some of the best articles on Wikipedia have come up from two lines and have grown into research articles. It can be used as assignments for students.
