The Wikipedia was founded in 2001. My first edits to this global online, almost-anyone-can-edit encyclopedia date back to 2004. This is not meant to be a boast; if one got there early, it was entirely to my young tech friends whose inspiration and support helped make this possible.
As someone who believed (and still does believe) in the power of sharing knowledge, taking to the Wikipedia came almost naturally. Prior to this, one was involved with concepts like Free Software and Open Source, and even Shareware ("shareable" software, which however has its own not-so-obvious restrictions).
Somewhere along the way, the impressive Creative Commons licenses came up. So did our tiny but effective and crowd-sourced BytesForAll. The last was an entirely voluntary and unfunded network to catalogue how techies in South Asia were using IT and the Internet to promote social and human development.
Even much earlier, the Goanet (an info sharing-focussed Goa-centric network) had been started by Herman Carneiro. Carneiro was a 17-year-old when he started it in 1994, and is now a doctor after finishing his engineering! This can indeed happen, but only in the Western world.
But one thing has been weighing heavily on one's mind. Convincing others to join in this network has been (a few exceptions apart) an uphill task in a place like Goa.
But even as other languages have gone ahead, and done some great work to mark their presence on the Wikipedia(s), Goa has lagged behind.
Goa has been ready to break heads over language (1985-87, and the Medium of Instruction battles in the 1990s). Yet, very few seem keen to build the shareable info network that everyone could benefit from.
Of course, other States are much larger than Goa's 1.6 million (or whatever) population. But the needs are as acute here. Goa badly requires information in its regional languages. It could gain hugely from having tourist-friendly (but non-biased) information on this popular and easy-to-find space.
The Wikipedia could provide space for Goa to search and find out more about itself. It could do so without waiting for some big "national" publishing house to decide what and when it makes commercial sense (for them) to come out with. Studies have shown how tourism in some parts of the globe benefit from having credible information online, including on the Wikipedia.
Initiatives like the Wikipedia can help to make us aware of our own societies -- literature, villages, history, language. It can also create shareable resources that anyone can use.
In Goa, it has been easy to create excitement about the potential of the Wikipedia. But, for some reason, sustaining this has proven to be extremely tough.
Since 1987 (and the OLA, Official Language Act), there is understandably a lot of government money flowing into the "regional language" sectors. This has made doughty campaigners of the past to lose their fire-in-the-belly. One "activist" sitting in an official position even asked if there would be any payment for "volunteering".
Goa faces another quaint problem. The almost-complete stopping of Marathi and Konkani education after Std IV (that could change with the NEP 2020) has its own implications. It may help Goa and its daizpora to get faster globalised. But it has created a generation of young people who are not quite comfortable to write and work in Konkani or Marathi. Plus, the dialect and script bullheadedness in Konkani had only made things worse.
Some techies have come up and played a helpful role with the Wikipedia in Goa. Among them Denzil Simoes (in Pune), Tanmay Pereira Naik, Anoop Shanbhag in Karnataka and a handful of others.
Sometime around 2009, a Konkani Wikipedia was set in incubation. It was my own ham-handed effort to "do something", in a field where there's obviously a need (Konkani). But, without adequate language knowledge or skills, it stayed stuck there. Till people like Isidore Dantas (in Pune) came along and helped translate, while the techies named above put in a lot of work.
Others like the multilingual Deepak D'Souza have also been trying to arouse a largely sleeping community, and get them to do something.
The Konkani Wikipedia went into "incubation" in 2006 (a stage prior to attaining full-fledged Wikipedia-hood). It was only in 2015 that, after the involvement of the NGO Centre for Internet and Society and then students at the university and some local colleges, that it got full-fledged status. But, till date, it doesn't have enough resources needed by a language that wants to fight possible extinction. And this is not because of a want of trying by the limited number of volunteers who worked on it, including Dr Fr Luis, and Darshan Kandolkar. Among them were also a number of young ladies.
Even though (at least in theory) everyone has the ability to edit even large Wikipedias, like English, till date there is not enough Goa-related information available there. Efforts to create a Wikipedia page for every Goan village have moved along very slowly, because few have come up to lend a hand.
Goa is a centre for foreign languages too, and one could even expect Portuguese and French Wikipedia contributions from here. So much is possible.
So, what blocks us from volunteering? Is it that Goa has lost its earlier spirit? One that helped it to build community assets that made a vital difference? (From kudds that housed migrants in Bombay, to 'bunds' that reclaimed 'khazan' lands and networks which build chapels and ghumtis that promoted community, even if along religious lines...)
Or, are we not using our tech skills enough, and need to find ways to organise and crowd-source better? Last week, Hyderabad was host to WikiConference India 2023 (WCI-2023). There was hardly anyone from Goa. It gets lonely out there.
The ninth (or seventh) largest site in the world needs people who believe in the power of sharing information. Not those wanting to squeeze out some personal gain from it. If this appeals to you, just google for "how to contribute to the Wikipedia". Getting started and getting going is far from tough.
